


the will to protect

by skittidyne



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Blood and Violence, Character Death, Hoo boy here we go, M/M, Magic Revealed, Monsters, Porn with Feelings, References to Depression, Sad with a Happy Ending, THERE WILL DEFINITELY BE A HAPPY ENDING PLEASE BEAR WITH ME, it's kind of an au mashup but you'll Never Guess Which 3 (yes you will), side: implied bokuaka, side: onesided terudai
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-01-31 13:01:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 49,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12682419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skittidyne/pseuds/skittidyne
Summary: Futakuchi doesn't understand how his life has gone from group projects and deadlines to secret identities and stripper outfits. He doesn't understand how he's gone from pre-med to monsters. He doesn't understand why he's having weird dreams and feelings about a stranger.He doesn't understand Kamasaki at all.





	1. my greatest regret was how much i believed in the future

**Author's Note:**

> (( HERE WE GO KIDDOS. first off, the biggest thank you to [mora,](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MysticTrashHeap/pseuds/MysticTrashHeap) my beta for this project, who has indulgently screamed with me over all of the rule-breaking and plot twists this story is in for.
> 
> second, a full list of content warnings include: explicit language, violence, character death, dark thoughts, suicidal thoughts/references, unreliable narrators, rough sex, grief, memory issues, implied mental illness/depression, and, again, character death. there is a happy ending, i swear it, but no one's pretending to be surprised about death in this one. 
> 
> third, happy birthday, futakuchi. i'm sure this is what you wanted. ))

Static burns through his ears and his boots slide on the slick grass. Most of the world has dwindled down to the point where Oikawa Tooru stands over him—over _him_ —over fucking Kamasaki who shouldn’t even _be here_. He’s not one of them. He never _has_ been. And now he’s going to be a casualty in a fight that isn’t his.

Futakuchi claws at the dredges of his magic to gather enough for one last, desperate burst forward. He nearly loses traction again as he throws himself at Oikawa, and the force of it sends them both skidding. The guy is built like a brick, even like this, black-eyed and pale and grinning. He’s not even out of breath, whereas Futakuchi pants and gasps like his lungs are full of knives.

He hardly feels more than the ghost of pressure against his chest as Oikawa slides his rapier through him.

“ _Kenji_!”

Kamasaki’s voice makes him hesitate, just for a split second. Because he’s _never_ heard him sound like that, not like he’s just watched his life shatter before him, like he’s bleeding out his agony right here and now. Futakuchi loses his chance to shove his fist through Oikawa’s rotten face when he whips around to make sure Kamasaki is alright.

Because why else would he make that noise? Kamasaki is the priority. Futakuchi will be fine.

Futakuchi still has not processed the blade sticking out of him, not until he sucks in a rattling breath and it leaves him wet and coppery.

“ _No_ , Kenji!”

Futakuchi swings at Oikawa just before he shoves him off and pulls his rapier free with a _snick_. The sound is inappropriately soft for how it finally reminds Futakuchi’s body that there should be _pain_ here.

Oikawa grins, dark eyes wide and half-manic, crinkled at the corners in sheer enjoyment at the sight of blood slicking the silver of his weapon. “You’re so desperate to protect him, hm?” Oikawa whispers, too quiet to be heard by anyone but Futakuchi. “Was he _yours_?”

Futakuchi means to tell him to fuck off. Instead, he collapses onto the wet grass.

Oikawa laughs again, and hooks his pinky finger into the ribbon at Futakuchi’s waist. He lifts him effortlessly, and tosses him as if he’s a ragdoll. Futakuchi lands heavily, and scrabbles at the blood slicking his stomach, willing himself to do _anything_ with it.

The man suddenly leaning over him next is not Oikawa. Sweat mats his short hair down, and though they’re inches apart, Futakuchi cannot hear what he’s trying so hard to tell him. He only blinks blearily up at him. Why can’t he see his face properly? Futakuchi suddenly _needs_ to see his face, desperately, and he reaches with his remaining strength.

Oikawa stands over them, laughing, though Futakuchi’s hearing fuzzes out completely into snowy static.

His last sight is the stranger’s eyes, indistinct but _so_ achingly familiar, brimming over with tears for _him_. Tooru brings his rapier down over both of them.

 

—

 

Futakuchi wakes in a cold sweat, stomach protesting, limbs sprawled out all over the large bed like he’d been tossing all night. As his breathing calms, he wonders who the fuck had been in his dream.

 

—

 

“Do you ever have really weird dreams?” Futakuchi asks around a mouthful of his dinner. Terushima cocks an eyebrow, smirking around his own food, and Futakuchi sighs. “No, not weird _sex_ dreams. Don’t be like that today. Don’t be like that ever, actually.”

“Dude, we’re supposed to share and share alike!” Terushima says with an overly dramatic gasp.

“ _You_ talking incessantly about what’s-his-face doesn’t count,” Futakuchi retorts, and Terushima laughs, though there’s a telling redness to his cheeks. (Futakuchi knows, unfortunately, _exactly_ who his face is. Terushima won’t shut up about his massive, debilitating crush on some upperclassman Futakuchi personally hopes he never meets, because he’d surely have to punch the guy for how many times he’s had to listen to Terushima wax poetic. And Futakuchi isn’t a fighter.)

“I told you, you can’t use that against me! I told you in sacred trust, in deep, holy confidence—”

“I have _never_ needed, nor wanted, to know where you want to stick your tongue on another man, Yuu-chan,” Futakuchi says with his brightest smile.

Terushima’s blush is horribly honest, but he’s laughing even harder now. “You’re just mad because you aren’t getting any action right now! C’mon, you’re always so weirdly alone. And you _told me_ you get lonely sometimes, man.”

“I told you that when I was drunk and had _feelings_. We both know I don’t normally have those.”

“And you don’t normally have weird sex dreams, either. Why are we even bothering talking about this?”

“Because you’re horrible with English and if I don’t tutor you in verb conjugations before your exam you’re going to fail,” Futakuchi drawls.

Terushima sulks. To punctuate this, he tries blowing bubbles into his milkshake, but he only ends up splattering them both with strawberry.

“Why the fuck am I friends with you?” Futakuchi means it as an intimidating, angry growl. He really does. Terushima Yuuji is a menace whom he loathes. But he cracks on a snort, despite the mess, and soon they’re both cackling, bent over their trays and struggling to catch their breath.

Futakuchi forgets to even talk about that dream by the time they calm down again.

It was weird, anyway. Probably didn’t matter much.

 

—

 

Group projects are the worst creation in the history of anything and everything, as any university student knows. Futakuchi does not know how he ended up with _three_ of them over the course of a month. Two are due on the same day, too, probably because the universe hates him specifically.

All of his groups had been assigned, no less. The _only_ silver lining is that one of them ended up with mostly upperclassmen, and none of the dumb ones Futakuchi loves to needle. Sure, Futakuchi doesn’t particularly _like_ Oikawa, but Matsukawa is fine, and they both have very good grades and do their coursework on time. He also gets to see Iwaizumi sometimes when he comes to waste time in the library next to them, too, and Futakuchi would absolutely never turn down an opportunity to behold a physique like _that_.

Maybe he doesn’t deserve to give Terushima crap over his (overwhelmingly, embarrassingly large) crush when Futakuchi spends half the meeting time staring at the expanse of Iwaizumi’s back. He’s glad it’s warm enough for him to have stripped off his hoodie. He wishes he’d roll up his sleeves, though.

Matsukawa makes some dumb remark that Futakuchi misses, and Oikawa is in stitches, inappropriate amounts of laughter probably, but something about his high-pitched squealing sets Futakuchi’s teeth on edge. He doesn’t know why.

Oikawa’s big, pretty-boy doe eyes are watery in a rather unattractive way when he _finally_ gets himself back under control. Matsukawa looks vaguely pleased with himself.

Oikawa smiles at Futakuchi, over-warm from leftover mirth. It makes the back of his neck prickle uncomfortably. Oikawa’s eyes are the exact shade of the milk chocolate bar Iwaizumi’s been eating, piece by piece, every time he finishes reading a page from his textbook.

Oikawa’s smile widens. “You’re staring, Ken-chan. I thought we’ve been working together long enough for my charms to have worn off, but I suppose no one can resist the beauty of a truly happy Oikawa-san!”

“Oikawa-san laughs like a drunk hyena,” Matsukawa deadpans.

That earns a rude, rather cute little snicker from Iwaizumi. Futakuchi grins, but mostly at the way Oikawa looks affronted at the sound.

 

—

 

Futakuchi sits on the edge, arms hooked over the railing, and kicks his feet into the open air. His heels _thud_ against the wall. The sounds of the match below are soothing: an even, quick rhythm of sneaker squeaks and ball slams and shouts from the players. Terushima isn’t squawking like normal, which is a blessed relief, but even so, Futakuchi is weirdly not into it today.

Some days are just a little rough around the edges, and it’s like nothing fits right. His apartment is too quiet, his bed is too big, his thoughts feel fuzzy around the edges, and it’s difficult to like things. Even when he _does_ like them. Or is supposed to.

His friends, even Terushima, generally have the sense to give him a bit of space on those kinds of days. Futakuchi doesn’t mind, even when he’s normally so prickly over being read so easily. But today, it kind of bothers him. He thinks it might be one of his weirdly _lonely_ moods, which are the worst, but he ends up missing everything he can’t ever get back. High school and old friends and old homes and how simple life had felt.

“Hey—” _do you ever miss it_ , he means to say, but Terushima inadvertently cuts him off.

“Sawamura-san is gone again. They’re using that loud kid as a starter again.” He sounds despondent enough that Futakuchi can’t bring himself to be too annoyed at the topic. At least he’s talking. The silence had been grating.

“You’re one to talk about loud,” Futakuchi points out.

Terushima is halfhearted at best in his retaliatory punch. “At this rate, he’s gonna lose his starting position. What a kick in the teeth.”

“You’ll just have to stop stalking him at practice and go actually, I don’t know, _talk_ to him like a normal person. How shocking!”

“We had a class together last semester,” Terushima listlessly replies. He rests his cheek on his folded arms, leaning against the railing, back a sad slump. “I dunno, I just feel worried for some reason. He’s usually healthy, right? I used to bum notes from him all the time.”

It may be indelicate of him, but it’s also the truth, so Futakuchi points out as gently as he can, “Sugawara-san doesn’t look that worried, so I doubt he’s bedridden anywhere.”

The silver-haired speck down on the sidelines cheers and accepts victory hugs from the little silver-and-black-haired one. Terushima huffs, but only with half his usual whining.

“If you’re _so_ worried, then why don’t you join the team again and ask them yourself,” Futakuchi grumbles, feeling far less pity now.

“Hell no. First off—with what _time_? Second, you know how ruthless they are with their starters. I wouldn’t even make the bench!”

“You’d still be playing.”

“Yeah, well, what about _you_ , captain?” Terushima shoots back.

Futakuchi scowls down at the court. He doesn’t reply.

 

—

 

Futakuchi has a midterm in seventeen minutes.

It’s a twenty minute walk, and he’d been up until five studying. He’s _still_ studying, actually, nose buried in his phone, jogging on autopilot to class. Fatigue itches at his eyelids, and he academically _knows_ that after a certain point sleep is more valuable than studying for the human brain, and yet. Here he is. Scanning over a timeline of World War I like his life depends on it. He doesn’t even _need_ this stupid class. The font on this damned thing is so tiny, and his eyes are so scrunched, yet he still isn’t certain he’s processing _any_ of it.

Normally, someone as big as he is with such a scowl on his face _and_ with his phone obviously taking up his attention would send most people scrambling out of his way.

Apparently he’s found the only not normal person on campus.

Futakuchi collides bodily with someone, completely by accident, phone going flying and jostling against the stranger to try to keep any semblance of balance. Books get dropped. Notes are scattered. He thinks he gets elbowed a little.

By the time they sort themselves out, both of them are upright and not bleeding, and Futakuchi notices that the stranger managed to catch his phone, despite the fact that the guy’s own books are a messy pile on the sidewalk between them.

He also notices that this guy is _stupidly_ his type.

Futakuchi will be the first person to admit he _has_ a type, and he has no shame in admitting this. To his surprise (read: pleasant surprise), the guy is taller than him, though not by much. He is, however, _far_ bulkier, and the weather gods must be smiling on him today, because it’s nice enough for the guy to not only forgo a jacket, but roll his sleeves up all the way to his shoulders. It’s dumb. It also is very good at showing off biceps that must be nearly the size of Futakuchi’s head. The guy has dyed hair, though his roots are coming in dark and noticeable, and when Futakuchi manages to tear his eyes away from how broad the stranger’s shoulders are, he finds that the guy’s face isn’t bad, either.

He appears to be just as shocked as Futakuchi is that he caught his phone.

It’s rather endearing.

Futakuchi has a midterm in eleven minutes.

He swallows, mouth suddenly dry.

It _really_ isn’t even that this guy is objectively hot as all hell and (again) _stupidly_ Futakuchi’s type. He’s fucking _familiar_ as all hell, too. Futakuchi gets a flash of a cocky grin, wide worried eyes, small hands clasped together, pictures hanging on a wall—but it’s all jumbled together, not any kind of memory or dream. Futakuchi just knows, in some deep part of his brain, that he _knows_ this man.

But he has no idea who he is.

He has a midterm in ten minutes.

“U-Uh, here.” The man hands back his phone with the barest, most suspicious stutter in his voice. (His voice is weirdly soft and even _more_ familiar. Futakuchi knows he has heard his name in that voice.) “Sorry, I guess. But it’s a good idea to keep an eye on where you’re going, y’know.”

“Thanks. Could say the same to you,” Futakuchi cannot help but say, swiping his phone back. It comes out a little meaner than he meant, but the guy doesn’t seem to take any offense.

He guy cracks a grin. It’s a little mean, too. Futakuchi stares at him.

It takes him a moment to get his body working again, and he at least stops to help the guy grab his things. He’d been nice enough to save his phone, at least. He _knows_ he doesn’t have the time. He has a midterm in seven minutes.

The atmosphere is strangely awkward, weighted with something Futakuchi cannot identify. Considering they’re strangers who don’t care about this random accident (or, are supposed to be), this is supposed to be nothing. Yet Futakuchi considers asking for this guy’s name. Maybe he’d recognize him that way. But he doesn’t want to give his own, like it’d be some sort of weird confession.

Their fingers brush, briefly, as he hands back a physics textbook. The guy definitely didn’t look like that type, but who knows. He certainly doesn’t. He does know he kind of wants to brush hands again, though. There had been nothing romantic about _any_ part of this waste of time, but he still… wants.

He has a midterm in four minutes.

At this point, he’s going to be late no matter what, but it’s not as if he knows what to _do_. They’re just standing in the middle of the sidewalk like assholes, trying not to seem like they’re staring at each other, and Futakuchi feels like there’s something big looming here. Some opportunity, something they’re on the cusp of, something that _should_ happen.

Nothing happens.

They part with awkward nods and an even more awkward attempt at a wave from the stranger.

He has nice hands, Futakuchi notes.

He makes it to his midterm with eight minutes to spare, in some miraculous break, and stares at his phone without reading the entire time.

 

—

 

Futakuchi considers whether or not he could kill himself by shoving his pen into his throat while Matsukawa and Oikawa cackle about some ancient internet meme involving strawberries.

Group projects are the fucking _worst_.

It’s not like he could do all the work himself, either, which is the worst part. He needs these two stupid fucking genius upperclassmen to pull their weight and explain some of this shit they’re supposed to cover—or at least do that part of the work themselves. He’s not picky.

So far, they’ve spent about an hour laughing at videos on Matsukawa’s phone. Futakuchi stares down at his pen. He doesn’t doubt he could manage enough force, but what about the _angle_? He’s supposed to be pre-med, surely this is something they should teach their students.

“Hey, Futakuchi,” Matsukawa says, “did I show you the video of Takara saying fuck?”

Yes, he has. Last year. Even then, it hadn’t been particularly new; everyone on the _planet_ has likely seen Matsukawa Takara saying fuck in her adorable little girl voice, and has likewise dealt with the ridiculously sappy and inappropriate Matsukawa Issei that comes with it.

“I wanna see it again. She won’t swear anymore,” Oikawa pouts and hooks his chin over Matsukawa’s shoulder.

“We’re supposed to be working on our group project,” Futakuchi thinly replies. He swears he means it politely.

“You’re just grumpy because Iwa-chan isn’t here for you to drool over,” Oikawa replies without missing a beat.

Futakuchi’s mouth falls open, and he thinks he’s blushing. He hadn’t been _obvious_ , had he? There actually aren’t many feelings attached to his fixation; he likes _looking_ at Iwaizumi, and with his lonely streak, perhaps sometimes he lets his mind wander.

But the world (sans Iwaizumi) knows of Oikawa Tooru’s possessive streak of his so-called best friend, and Futakuchi has apparently crossed some line with his eyes.

“Oikawa,” Matsukawa sighs.

“Sorry,” Oikawa coos and looks away, halfway burying his face in Matsukawa’s neck in the process. “I know this is due soon. I promise we’ll get it done.”

“He didn’t sleep well last night,” Matsukawa says. In literally any other circumstance, it’d sound almost lewd, but now, it’s meant to be an apology. One Futakuchi doesn’t _want_. There’s nothing going on between Iwaizumi and himself, and hell if he wants to get caught up in Oikawa’s stupid jealousy.

They don’t get much more work done in that session, and the video of the little girl swearing doesn’t help at all.

 

—

 

Futakuchi’s roommate is never home—he’s not even sure he knows who the guy is—so it’s an easy place for him to invite friends over. Even if it involves Shirabu dramatically laying on his couch with an arm thrown over his eyes, lamenting his sorry existence.

But Futakuchi had been feeling restless and needy, so Shirabu would have to do.

“I know this is how you’re trying to convey your nervousness,” Futakuchi begins, eyes on the Mario Kart round that really only _he’s_ playing because Shirabu is an asshole, “and I know your nervousness stems from honest feelings and that scares you even _more_.”

He doesn’t need to look to know that Shirabu is flipping him off.

“And I know we have _very unfortunately_ become that friend who spills his guts all the time to each other. God only knows how _that_ tragedy happened,” Futakuchi continues.

It’s true, though. Somehow, in the worst cosmic joke of history, he and Shirabu had become each other’s confidants when it came to mushy horrible embarrassing feelings. He thinks it started with a lot of alcohol, bad timing, and heartbreak, but he can’t fully remember the details now. (Possibly because of that alcohol.)

“But I swear to you, on everything I cherish—”

“ _What_ do _you_ even cherish,” Shirabu rudely cuts in. “Are you capable of cherishing? You haven’t been in a relationship since what, high school? You’re going to die alone, without any action—”

Futakuchi abandons the game and kicks Shirabu quite literally off his couch. “ _Rude_ , even for you! You don’t get invited over for Futakuchi Lonely Time if you’re going to be a jackass and whine about all of _your_ problems!”

“You don’t _know_ heartbreak,” Shirabu snarls.

It’s a serious tone of voice, and a fairly serious conversation, but it’s such a dramatic line that Futakuchi cannot help a snort of laughter. Shirabu’s eyes narrow. “Look, I’m sorry, man. I _really_ am. I saw the—the _devastation_ left in the wake of that high school crush. But it’s been two years, and trust me, _this_ isn’t a one-sided deal.”

Shirabu’s anger crumples in the face of his ugly self-doubt. “How do you know?”

For someone who works so damn hard at everything in his life, Futakuchi honestly has no idea how Shirabu just rolls over at literally anything _remotely_ related to romance.

At least he isn’t as bad as Terushima.

“Literally everyone in our year knows he’s into you. There is a _betting pool_ ,” Futakuchi deadpans.

“He likes using my notes. We share a lot of classes,” Shirabu replies.

Futakuchi is ninety-nine percent certain that this stupid crush of Shirabu’s is two seconds from passing back his own note that has ‘do you like me’ with all positive checkboxes.

“I’m going to ask him out for you,” Futakuchi threatens, and Shirabu sits straight up, anger back, blazing, in his eyes.

“You do that and I’ll fucking _kill_ you.”

“You’ll save me from med school and loans. I’d _thank_ you.”

Shirabu glares at him, measuring him up, then eventually says with the air of some haughty noble, “You need to get laid.”

“You offering?” Futakuchi replies, voice flat.

“Would it kill you to get some stress relief? Go on a _date_?”

“I’ve been on dates,” he lies. Blatantly. Shirabu scoffs, and _finally_ picks up the other controller, just in time to soundly lose. “With how much you and Terushima angst about romance, why would I wanna? Clearly I’m happy being a lonely old man at the age of twenty.”

“You disgust me,” Shirabu tells him.

“Oh, save that dirty talk for the bedroom,” Futakuchi croons. “Getting me all hot and bothered—!”

“ _Disgusting_ ,” Shirabu repeats, this time laughing, and the next round starts. “Once I sort my shit out—”

“ _If_ you ever do.”

“—I’m coming for you next. I know you’ve been miserable and feeling sorry for yourself. I’m sure I could figure out _someone_ to set you up with and get you out of your nasty-ass bedroom for a night.”

“You’re jealous because I don’t have your tiny dorm bed. Or, I suppose, your tiny limbs, so maybe that’s just the right size for you—”

Shirabu tries to smother him with a pillow. Futakuchi still wins the next match.

 

—

 

Futakuchi doesn’t have weird dreams so often anymore.

Instead, he has those horrible, frustrating dreams of someone here with him, someone to warm his bed at night and hang out with and buy him candy until he gets sick. He wakes up craving domesticity and _hating_ himself for it. He wakes up so lonely he swears he can taste it on his tongue. He desperately misses _something_ he’s never had.

He doesn’t have feelings. He certainly doesn’t need romance. He doesn’t _need_ anyone.

…But it would be nice.

 

—

 

Futakuchi _sees him_.

He runs into Terushima, unaware he’d stopped, unaware of anything except the sight of that man with the dyed hair and cocky grin standing on the side of the court. “Hey, what the fuck, man!” Terushima pushes Futakuchi off, surly because of nerves, but does a double-take when he sees Futakuchi’s expression. “Woah, you okay?”

“That’s him,” Futakuchi says without meaning to.

“Him who?” Terushima follows his eyes, but doesn’t recognize the man speaking to Sawamura. “What about ‘im?”

Futakuchi opens and closes his mouth a few times. What _about_ him? He doesn’t actually have an answer for that; he doesn’t know who that guy is, and they had only met all of once, almost two weeks ago. There is nothing else to it. But he still feels that undeniable pull, and it isn’t just to the guy’s stupid shoulder to waist ratio.

“Woah, Futakuchi Kenji, is that a _feeling_ I see?”

“I ran into him once,” Futakuchi replies, not exactly a dismissal, but the only explanation he can give.

“ _And_?” Terushima asks with _much_ waggling of his eyebrows.

“And… that’s it,” Futakuchi admits.

“Wow, disappointing. Well, we can use this as an excuse, because he’s talking to Sawamura-san and _that_ had been our original goal. You’re coming with _me_.” Terushima bodily drags him, despite the difference in size, and Futakuchi is still too staggered to properly fight back. He cannot explain these half-emotions inside him at the sight of this stranger.

He and Sawamura are speaking, friendly enough, but not any kind of happy conversation based on the frown Sawamura sports. The stranger isn’t in any uniform, just regular workout gear, whereas Sawamura is only taking a break between sets.

“Sawamura-san!” Terushima calls like a particularly excited puppy.

Sawamura starts, then turns, breaking into a warm smile. The other man turns, too, and his eyes go _huge_ when he sees Futakuchi next to Terushima.

So he’s not the only one who remembers their literal run-in. Interesting.

“Can we pick this up another time?” Sawamura asks, head inclined toward the stranger, but smile only for Terushima.

“Uh—yeah,” the stranger replies with a suspicious hesitation. His eyes are still locked onto Futakuchi. Futakuchi isn’t certain if he likes the attention or not, but he preens all the same.

“Can I talk to you a moment? Uh, in private?” Terushima asks, and at Sawamura’s confused nod, he shoves Futakuchi aside. Toward the other guy. Because Terushima is an _ass_. “Catch up with you later, man!”

Futakuchi glares at him, but with his handsome stranger’s attention still on him and being utterly dismissed from whatever Terushima made up to try to talk to Sawamura this time, he has little choice but to slink away. He vows revenge. It will be cold-blooded and delicious.

“Got ditched, huh?” the Unfairly His Type guy grunts, trying too hard to seem casual. Players are coming off the court now, grabbing towels and water bottles, and they both get out of the way, headed out of the gym together only out of convenience. Futakuchi isn’t sure he’s _going anywhere_ with this guy. They’re just getting out from underfoot. Because he’s considerate.

Futakuchi forgets to respond, as distracted as he is keeping a fastidiously maintained distance between the two of them.

“More like pawned off, I guess. Not very popular, are ya?” the guy asks with a sharklike grin.

Futakuchi’s carefully crafted neutral face twitches. “What about you? Sawamura-san didn’t seem too keen on spending more time with you than he had to, and that man has the patience of a saint.”

Ah, shit. A little more biting than he actually intended, and Futakuchi _hates_ apologizing for being an asshole. But, to his pleasant surprise, the guy just laughs it off.

“He didn’t wanna hear what I had to say,” the guy frankly admits. He has an easy way of speaking, casual and straightforward and friendly, and the _barest_ suggestion of some sort of accent. That, too, sounds familiar, but that could just be a matter of Futakuchi knowing someone else with that kind of accent. It could just be a lot of coincidences, right.

Terushima dyes his hair, too, so that’s not it. Iwaizumi has a similar build. Shirabu has the same sharpness to his gaze. Futakuchi knows quite a few people taller than him (if barely). His smirk seems to be about half Kuroo, half Sugawara. Plenty of people speak casually. Absolutely nothing about this man is unique in Futakuchi’s life, yet his entire being _consumes_ Futakuchi’s thoughts. He must dissect him and figure out _what_ is so damn special.

“So you’re not the popular type,” Futakuchi replies.

“Nah, not anymore, I guess. No harm, no foul. I’ll talk to ‘im later.” Then, shockingly, in an _actually_ casual manner, the guy adds, “The name’s Kamasaki. Kamasaki Yasushi. Yours?”

“Futakuchi,” he warily replies. Friendly people are nice, but this guy is angling for something.

No, not _this guy_ anymore. It’s weird to put a name to a face. It doesn’t ring any bells, though, which is admittedly disappointing.

Kamasaki huffs a little laugh. It is both endearing and annoying. “So, ya play wingman often?”

“If even _you_ noticed, then Sawamura is officially the densest guy on the planet,” Futakuchi grumbles. He has little issue outing Terushima’s debilitating crush if even strangers can pick it up from two spoken lines.

“Nah, he knows,” Kamasaki wryly replies. “I think he’s just tryin’ to be kind, y’know? Not break the guy’s heart too bad. He’s, uh, taken.” As if everyone on campus were somehow _unaware_ of the famously tooth-rottingly sweet couple of Sawamura and Sugawara. “Can’t fault the guy for trying to avoid a little heartbreak.”

“Terushima is actually pretty content to just pine,” Futakuchi mutters, almost a defense of his friend. “I know he looks like a punk, but he’s not a homewrecker. It’s innocent, or as innocent as he can ever get.”

“I believe you,” Kamasaki says with another stupidly sincere grin. “So he’s stuck in limbo, happy to get any chance to talk, and won’t take it a step further. And Sawamura spares his feelings by not acknowledgin’ them, either. A confession would just ruin everything, so they just ignore it.”

“Yep,” Futakuchi cheerily agrees. “It’s utter _hell_ ,” he adds in that same bright tone.

“I think it’s sweet,” Kamasaki replies. “It kinds comes from a place of respect, maybe? To pine like that, you gotta like someone a lot, but still respect ‘em. Seems like a lost art of romance.”

“Limbo is hell,” Futakuchi maintains.

Kamasaki laughs, a little too loudly. Futakuchi stares at him, quizzically, trying to put his finger on why it sounded so _wrong_.

“Alright, sounds like you don’t like crushes. Sounds like you’re a stick in the mud who doesn’t like fun or romance,” Kamasaki says, and Futakuchi gapes at him, both incredibly offended and incredibly annoyed.

“Do you make assholish assumptions about everyone’s love lives the first time you meet them?” Futakuchi asks. He does not quite manage the unaffected, falsely friendly air he wishes for. He swallows, breaks eye contact, and tries again; his pride will allow nothing less. “I mean, shit man, what does that say about _your_ love life? Can’t imagine too many people are willing to put up with _that_ kind of first date. What’s your losing streak like?”

“Well aren’t you a prickly little shit,” Kamasaki replies with overwhelming delight.

Futakuchi is somehow _losing_ this. Futakuchi doesn’t lose arguments, or bickerings, or spats. (Except to Oikawa, or truly angry Shirabu, or Mai when she’s feeling ruthless.)

“You’re just a prick,” Futakuchi retorts. “Jackass.”

“Just sayin’ there’s something noble about pining away after someone you know you can’t have. Terushima has the right idea, maybe.”

“My memory must be going. I can’t recall _asking_ for your opinion anymore? In fact, I’m not sure I’m asking for any more of this conversation. I’d rather not subject myself to your kind of temperament any longer, so _bye_!” With that last, desperate attempt to get the last word in, Futakuchi turns sharply on his heel, and leaves the near-stranger behind.

Asshole.

He calls up Shirabu later that night, just to convince himself that he hadn’t magically lost his edge in arguing.

 

—

 

Futakuchi likes being social.

He’s beginning to wonder if that might not be a past tense, however.

Lately, even hanging out with his friends, the people with whom he doesn’t have to give a damn how snarky or mean or sarcastic he is, his teeth feel on edge and restlessness fills him. He wants to go _home_.

Alcohol should help, right.

Terushima sticks his tongue out so the ball piercing in it can glint in the soft bar lighting. It’s a bar that happens to have a dance floor and decent DJ; it is definitely _not_ a club, no matter how hard it tries. It leads to a gentler atmosphere, one Futakuchi prefers.

“Got this in high school,” Terushima says, tongue back in his mouth where it belongs, “so _I_ win.”

“Body piercings hurt more,” Futakuchi replies, leaning forward onto his elbows on the sticky table.

“He’s right,” Mai agrees. Futakuchi has never felt more gratitude toward her, and he’s counting when she had been a manager while he’d been captain of their high school team.

“Dude, this is a _muscle_!” Terushima squawks. He sticks his tongue out again in emphasis.

“It might’ve hurt more to heal, but I think body piercings could hurt more getting it,” Ennoshita says, trying to be diplomatic, and he pulls Terushima back down into the booth seat. “Depending on where it is.”

“I had to go with a friend when he got his hip piercings, and I got my bellybutton pierced to try to get _him_ to stop crying. And I’m totally man enough to admit that _I_ cried like a _baby_ when I saw that huge-ass needle they stuck in me,” Futakuchi says. Slightly smugly.

“ _I_ didn’t cry,” Terushima replies.

“Body piercings would hurt more in general, because you’re forgetting—dick piercings,” Shirabu says like that’s the final word on the matter.

The table falls silent, as if in reverence. Mai snorts into her sugary, fruity, Stronger Than Anything You Boys Are Drinking glass.

“Dick piercing would be cool, though,” Terushima mutters.

Ennoshita sighs, leans forward, and begins counting. “Two in each ear, plus your industrial. Tongue piercing. You _lost_ your wrist piercing after hitting it, and I thought you wanted collarbones or snake bites next? You’re already a walking hazard to metal detectors, and I can tell you that the punk look doesn’t work on Daichi.”

“People can do things to their bodies that _they_ like. Getting something like that for another person isn’t a great idea,” Mai chides.

“Fair,” Ennoshita replies. He rarely argues, but least of all with Mai. He usually calls her Too Much Like Futakuchi to try. (Futakuchi tries to take that as a compliment, he really does.)

“I have spare cash right now. What if I did go again? We can take a group vote!”

“What did I _just_ say about not doing it for other people?”

“No, I want to see him cry while getting a dick piercing,” Futakuchi says eagerly. Terushima scowls at him, but Futakuchi leans forward again, and says in the huskiest voice he can manage, “Imagine what kind of filthy reputation you’d get when people learn you have a tongue _and_ a dick piercing.”

If there’s one thing Terushima likes, it’s attention—especially anything that can relate to his weird desire to maintain a bad boy persona while being a 3.8 average and one of the genuinely nicest (in his own way) people Futakuchi can stand to be around for long periods of time.

“Don’t egg him on,” Ennoshita scolds, but Futakuchi has become too powerful, with the excited gleam in Terushima’s eye.

“Okay but dude, you gotta come with me,” he says, and _now_ Futakuchi balks at his masterful plan.

“No one is touching my dick other than me.”

“Yeah, we know,” Shirabu says loudly.

“First off, fuck you. Second, _fuck you_.”

“If you really want something that hurts, go for nipple piercings. I heard that dick piercings don’t actually hurt that much,” Mai says and sips at her drink, perfectly at ease, despite the way Futakuchi and Shirabu glare at each other over her head.

“ _Dude_ , I’d look _so good_ with my tits pierced!”

“Don’t call them that.”

“Then Futakuchi wouldn’t be the only one to look good shirtless!”

Futakuchi preens, whereas Ennoshita flatly asks, “Why is he the _only_ one that looks good shirtless?”

“He looks like a stripper,” Mai says.

“How do you think I’m paying for uni?”

“Semi Eita has a dick piercing,” Shirabu says, head tilted in thought, and he boredly swirls the beer in his bottle. “He says it hurt, but I don’t know anyone with any other body ones to compare to.”

“How do _you_ know that?”

“He _was_ my roommate last year,” Shirabu deadpans. Futakuchi can’t believe they collectively forgot the room assignment from hell that had almost erupted into nuclear warfare. Not even in a funny way. Shirabu had spent more time at Futakuchi’s than his own dorm. “Anyway, unless we find some freak with nipple piercings, _or_ find someone who has both, I don’t know how we can decide this.”

Mai again sips at her drink. With all the primness she can muster, she tells the group, “I can personally tell you that nipple piercings hurt like a bitch and a half.”

The table erupts into jeers and shouts and it only ends when Mai kicks Terushima under the table.

Futakuchi likes this weird group of his, but it makes going home, buzzed and alone, that much worse.

 

—

 

“So you hate-fucked the guy, right?” Oikawa drawls around the pen in his mouth.

“Excuse me?” Futakuchi says faintly.

“I know I’m not your favorite person, or even your second favorite person. But you have seethed about this guy three times to even _me_ , and that’s a hell of a fixation, Ken-chan.”

“We’re going to start a bet,” Matsukawa dryly agrees.

“Maybe if you got laid you’d stop ruining our otherwise productive group meetings. This is due on Friday, you know,” Oikawa adds.

Futakuchi is honestly too exhausted to kill him, but he wishes. Oh, how he _wishes_. He can’t even bring himself to try to argue back, because Oikawa always wins. Oikawa is one of those annoying people who are perfect at everything, and of course that includes gaining the upper hand in nearly any conversation he deigns to have.

Futakuchi knows _exactly_ how much effort is put into Oikawa’s perfect facade, of course, since he tries to put just as much effort into his own.

But Oikawa is better at it.

And Futakuchi has been very tired lately. It’s not worth the fight.

“You’re supposed to be our feisty underclassman,” Matsukawa says and dares poke Futakuchi with his pen. Futakuchi is too tired to bat him away, even. “Where’s your fire, Futakuchi-kun?”

“I’m too tired to deal with you two. Responsible, respectful upperclassmen that you are, you’ll carry this project for me, won’t you? I need a nap.”

Neither Oikawa nor Matsukawa actually disagree. So Futakuchi gathers his things and heads home. It kind of feels like he’s being punished, somehow, for not being good enough. Which is really weird and stupid, he knows, but it’s one of those bad moods that doesn’t _care_ how objective his thoughts are. He shouldn’t have joked around about leaving. He shouldn’t have _left_.

Their project was due on Friday, to be presented on Monday, and he could still help. He had to. He _was_ part of the group, as much as he loathed those two.

But instead, Futakuchi is standing in the middle of his empty apartment, feeling a rather vile mixture of self-pity, exhaustion, and loneliness.

He should get a cat. At least then he wouldn’t feel like he’s missing someone who doesn’t exist every time he came home.

Futakuchi doesn’t even make it to the bedroom, instead flopping onto the couch and sprawling the full length. They have a nice couch; it’s even long enough for him to lay out on, with his stupid gangly legs, and he doesn’t remember it costing too much. It’d be a nice fucking couch, he supposes, not that he actually cares. People involve feelings. Fucking involves people. None of this makes him happy.

He knows this kind of dark mood means he _should_ call or text someone. But he doesn’t want to feel needy. He spent most of his last year of high school as acting captain of the team; that beat into him a _very_ skewed sense of sole responsibility. He doesn’t need help, he needs to do everything on his own, and perfectly, and never reach out. He’s the one people reach out to. He must do this on his own.

He’d been getting better about it, he thought. Apparently not.

Futakuchi stares at the short list of contacts in his phone. He only bothers saving the numbers of people he _likes_ , and he knows he could call someone to come over. Most of his friends are painfully aware of his funks like this.

But that makes him feel vulnerable and fragile, and those are two words that do _not_ describe Futakuchi Kenji.

Futakuchi drops his phone to the floor and instead stares at the ceiling. It offers no answers.

What was the point? His friends would just humor him, or indulge him, or pity him. He doesn’t offer anything in return. His own damn roommate ignores his existence. He’s only going to school to become a doctor to please his mother. He hasn’t played volleyball in a year and a half. What did he even _like_ about where he was in life? Wasn’t university supposed to be the fun, carefree time before adulthood kicks his ass? He can’t imagine too much more going downhill from here.

He closes his eyes. He feels so, _so_ tired.

 

—

 

Futakuchi wakes to a brawl in his living room when a body is thrown across the couch and into his stomach.

He _oofs_ at the sudden, painful weight, jarring awake with a wheeze.

His assailant scrambles off of him and nearly pushes over the couch entirely as they jump over the back of it.

First: the man who had been thrown onto him had been _bigger_ than him, which is a short list of people. Second: he actually knew that man, so it was entirely a moot point, as far as mystery was concerned.

Futakuchi peers over the edge of the couch with a suspicious, angry squint. “Matsukaaaaawa-san,” he calls in a sing-song voice promising violence, “what are you doing in my home?”

“Why are you awake?” Oikawa asks, affronted, and great, he’s here too.

Futakuchi blinks, taking in the fact that they’re both _armed_.

Oikawa has a shining, thin, silver sword, the fancy kind that looks like it belongs in a fantasy story, and Matsukawa holds a jeweled _whip_ taut between his hands. He looks used to holding a whip. Futakuchi banishes the thought.

He has two armed men of questionable moral standing and even more questionable opinion of Futakuchi standing in his kitchen. Futakuchi is in uncomfortable slept-in jeans and has enough lethargy remaining in his limbs to tell him that if he would get as far as flopping off the couch before collapsing on jellied legs.

“Are you here to rob me,” Futakuchi says.

“Why is he _awake_ ,” Oikawa says, again, this time with a petulant whine edging into his voice.

“Are you supposed to be my nightmare?”

Matsukawa suddenly lashes out with his whip, and Futakuchi flinches when he realizes it’s coming at _him_.

It stops just over his head, however.

Futakuchi cracks open an eye to find a _monster_ crouched over him, the whip wrapped around one spindly leg.

It looks a lot like a fat spider, except hazy around the edges, flickering a bit like TV static. It is mostly dark in color, oily purples and black like ink all swirling together, but it has two beady little eyes that glow exactly like monster eyes probably ought to glow.

Futakuchi only sees the mouth when he realizes that it had not been sitting there harmlessly; it had been sitting above him with its _giant mouth wide open over his head_ , and that big mouth snaps shut when Matsukawa jerks it over with an deceptively easy flick of his wrist.

Oikawa catches it with his sword, impaling it flawlessly. The monster twitches a few times before dissolving into gooey black motes.

“Hurrah, another day saved by Oikawa-san!” Oikawa chirps and flicks nonexistent blood off his sword. “Oh, and you’re here, too, Mattsun. I suppose.”

“What the hell,” Futakuchi says as levelly as he can manage. It comes out as a squeak. To be fair, he’d just about had his head bitten off, and he’d woken up to two classmates of his having broken into his home. _Armed_. That part seems important, so he adds, “Y-You have a _sword_.”

“I have a rapier, and it is magnificent,” Oikawa corrects and holds it aloft, hypothetically so Futakuchi can better appreciate the shining, beautiful weapon.

“You would not believe how many fights he starts with _en garde_ ,” Matsukawa says like he has suffered through untold numbers of such a thing.

“I think I’d be a good French speaker. I’ve been trying to pick it up in my off time, but that’s getting sparser and sparser. And I can’t have ladies swarming me _all_ the time. Who would be able to resist my charms if I added the language of love to my repertoire?”

“I think Iwaizumi would manage it.”

“That’s just rude.”

“Kind of like Iwaizumi, hm?”

“I _could_ sweep him off his feet! One day!”

“Can you two,” Futakuchi breaks in, “have this conversation somewhere that’s not my kitchen?”

Oikawa claps his hands together, and with a swirling flash of light, his sword and Matsukawa’s whip are both gone. So his upperclassmen stand there, in his kitchen, in jeans and hoodies and glasses and looking kind of rumpled and tired. Futakuchi can relate. But later, when this is still not a case of breaking and entering. And _weird shit_.

Oikawa opens his mouth, and then points at Futakuchi. Futakuchi expects something grand to come out of his mouth next.

Instead, he gets, “You should pretend this was a weird dream. And when you wake up tomorrow, listen to some happy music or something. G’night, Ken-chan!”

And the prick goes to leave.

“Hey, _wait_ , assholes! You can’t break into my place, kill a thing, and then _ditch_!” Futakuchi snarls and tries to climb over the back of the couch, but the world goes woozy.

He slides onto the floor again like a limp pile of noodles. The room continues spinning around him. He tries to raise his head, especially when the two step over to him again, but that only serves to make him dizzier. “Oh, did we get here too late?”

“No, it was still here, and he’s still alive.”

“I’ve never seen someone get this bad,” Oikawa admits, with something unnervingly like concern in his voice. He’s concerned _now_ , not when a monster had been about to bite Futakuchi’s head off. Right.

“Maybe we should have taken care of this _earlier_ , like Iwaizumi said?” Matsukawa asks, pointedly.

“He’s normally so surly! How was I supposed to know he was attracting this many shadows?!”

“ _Like Iwaizumi said_ ,” Matsukawa repeats.

Futakuchi tries to growl at them, tries to snap something about how they’re bickering stupidly while More Important Things happen (read: himself, because he does _not_ feel well), but his tongue feels heavy and numb in his mouth.

Oikawa says something else, in that snooty, whiny voice of his, and Futakuchi slips into blackness.

 

—

 

“You shitstains, I thought he was _dead_!” is the first thing Futakuchi hears when he wakes again.

“He’s _normally like that_ , Iwa-chan! How were we supposed to know?!”

“You don’t get to say he’s an asshole and then watch something like this continue!”

“I thought Kamasaki would take care of it—”

“You meet with him twice a week, and you _watched_ this happen! You sat on your hands and watched this happen, Oikawa. _You_ did!”

“Well, he’s still alive,” comes Matsukawa’s voice, even-tempered as always.

Not that it soothes Iwaizumi’s tirade. “I don’t care about your personal feelings on the matter, and I’m pissed as fuck that you didn’t bring me, but that doesn’t matter, either. I care that you two have these powers and you did fuck-all with them!”

“Keep it down,” Futakuchi groans.

The room—wherever he is—snaps into silence.

Futakuchi raises his head, and blearily blinks around. He has no idea where he is, but it’s dimly lit, and his pounding headache thanks the stars for that. He’s on something soft, but propped upright by a huge collection of pillows, it seems.

The first thing he can focus on is Iwaizumi, crouched down so they’re roughly eye-level. Futakuchi has never seen the man look so worried. It’s frankly disconcerting, considering Futakuchi is used to two modes—angry at Oikawa and sighing fondly at Oikawa—from him, and it’s not like they know each other that well. It feels a little too personal, to see him so concerned.

“How are you feeling?” Iwaizumi gently asks.

“Like shit,” Futakuchi rasps.

“Fair enough,” Matsukawa says from somewhere behind Iwaizumi. “You almost died,” he adds, like it’s a fun fact he read on some juice pouch.

“You’re included in the jackass count who sat and watched it happen,” Iwaizumi says, straightening. “Futakuchi-kun, you’re going to be fine now, don’t worry. But we’re going to have to have a talk.”

“About how they almost let me die?” Futakuchi asks, because he’s cognizant enough to have garnered _that_ much.

“Iwa-chan, you shouldn’t tell him everything,” Oikawa says like a kicked dog.

Iwaizumi snaps at him, literally snaps his teeth at him, over his shoulder. Futakuchi sees enough movement to know that Oikawa has stepped back. “He’s a target now, thanks to you two. He deserves to know.”

“Tell me why they sat and watched a monster try to eat me,” Futakuchi sighs, and closes his eyes again. He startles back into awareness when Iwaizumi snaps his fingers in front of his face.

“You were attacked by things called shadows. They’re normally invisible, and not all that dangerous, unless in large amounts or left over time. They feed on negative thoughts, feelings, and energies.”

Futakuchi’s head droops again, but he huffs a little laugh, and that seems to soothe Iwaizumi a bit. “So a monster was making me feel shitty all the time? Shit, I thought I’d just been _depressed_ ,” he scoffs, albeit weakly. “Ready to go to student health and everything…”

“Well.” Iwaizumi shifts uncomfortably. “You probably should still do that. They can worsen dark moods, but, uh, yeah. Still get that checked out.”

Futakuchi falls silent. Half of him is still exhausted from whatever trial this had been, and half of him is embarrassed that his joke (not-joke) had fallen flat so badly.

“You’re probably going to be able to see these things from now on, and that means they can see _you_. You’ll have to be careful,” Iwaizumi says, gentler than before. Futakuchi wishes he could hide himself in the pillow pile. Iwaizumi’s nice—too nice. Futakuchi doesn’t want this kind of pity.

“They were fighting them, though,” he mutters, and jerks his chin over to Matsukawa. “They killed that… shadow.”

“That’s because we’re magical knights who protect goodness and justice and the light,” Matsukawa replies, straight-faced.

Iwaizumi scrubs a hand over his face with a horrendously aggravated sigh. “He’s _not wrong_. Some people have this magic shit, and it gives them powers and weapons to fight these things. They’ll take care of things. So if you ever spot something like this, especially if a shadow seems to be hanging around one person for a long time, then don’t be afraid to tell us.”

Futakuchi squints up at them, and asks, “You’re magical girls?”

At least this time, someone laughs; Matsukawa snorts, and hides a grin with his hand. “We have _outfits_ ,” he admits, totally pleased, and Oikawa makes a derisive sound. “No frilly skirts, I’m afraid, though. But Oikawa _does_ have a ribbon around his waist—”

Oikawa makes something like a siren wail and grabs Matsukawa, who dissolves into laughter. “Thigh high boots are also involved for _some_ people,” Iwaizumi innocently adds.

Futakuchi cracks a grin. “Glad to know such a team is protecting campus from vile shadows.” He _very_ happily imagines Iwaizumi in a sleeveless sailor uniform and tall boots. “So… you’re not here to recruit me, just to be clear?”

“It’s not like that. You can’t just volunteer,” Iwaizumi replies. “You have to inherit these powers, sort of. And you have to have a drive to…” He trails off, rubbing the back of his head, looking rather red-faced.

“You have to want to protect someone,” Matsukawa volunteers. “Desperately, you could say.”

Oikawa’s face looks pretty red, too. Futakuchi looks between them. “And that’s it?” He’d probably want to save Terushima or Mai from a monster on a good day. But, like Oikawa had almost done for him, he’s not sure he could do it for assholes or strangers. That sounds like a lot of effort—and more importantly, a lot of selflessness Futakuchi is damn sure he doesn’t possess.

“There’s a light show and you get magic, like we said,” Matsukawa says, because both Oikawa and Iwaizumi seem to find opposite walls _very_ appealing while trying to work past their embarrassment. “It’s not all fun and games, and the magic isn’t really useful for fun shit, either. But… hey. You get to protect what you wanted to protect.”

“Cool. Am I free to go, then? I won’t drop dead because a depression monster is trying to eat me again?”

“You should sleep extra for the next couple days, and your appetite will be shot, but try to eat anyway,” Iwaizumi tells him, a little gruffly. “Make an effort on taking better care of yourself, and you should bounce back. Oikawa _will_ keep an eye on you this time to prevent any further accidents.”

Futakuchi pushes himself off the pillow pile with far more effort than it ought to take. He falls back down onto the futon as soon as he’s almost upright.

Iwaizumi laughs, still self-conscious, but easing back into that sincere desire to help that probably makes him so attractive. “You can spend the night here, don’t worry. You’ll be safe.”

“More worried about regaining feeling in my limbs, since I’m still processing the whole _magic and monsters are real_ bit of the evening,” Futakuchi admits. He settles into the pillows without further invitation.

Despite his thoughts, which gradually warm up to racing, thunderous things when he realizes his own brush with death, Futakuchi sleeps through the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: Futakuchi demands answers, no matter who he has to get them from.
> 
> (( cookies to the first person who manages to tell me what 3 things this is an AU of ))


	2. even if you know what's coming, you're never prepared for how it feels

As soon as Futakuchi leaves that morning, struggling to hide both a limp and his exhaustion, Oikawa gives in.

Matsukawa crouches down next to him, both in comfort and his own trembling realization. “He could’ve _died_ ,” Oikawa stammers out.

“They go so fast now,” Matsukawa agrees in a rough voice. “ _Shit_. That was…”

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says, raising his head, eyes shining with unshed tears, “you _have_ to believe us. We had no idea it had been that bad. We didn’t—”

“I know,” Iwaizumi replies. He stands before them, sympathetic but ultimately unconnected to their mistake. He rubs his arm awkwardly, and cannot look directly at either of them. “I know I kinda blew up about it. I’m sorry. I know you weren’t really… y’know. You wouldn’t do that.”

Oikawa gives into his crying with a particularly wet wail. He presses both palms over his eyes, as if to stop the tears. Matsukawa buries his face in his knees and shakes, silent.

Iwaizumi eventually sits in front of them, cross-legged, but it takes time before either of them seek out any comfort he offers.

 

—

 

“Shirabu,” Futakuchi croaks into his phone, staring at himself in the mirror. “I need you to come over.”

“You sound like hell.”

Futakuchi _looks_ like hell.

Everything that had happened the night previous had left Futakuchi feeling like he had the world’s worst hangover. He has bags under his eyes, a sickly paleness to his complexion, and he cannot help but continually search his body for bite marks of that damned shadow thing. It had been _eating him_.

“Is everything alright? Don’t you have class in half an hour?”

“Fuck class, I need you over here,” Futakuchi barks into the phone.

Shirabu is there in fifteen minutes. He does not come with anything, either anything to soothe Futakuchi’s clearly panicked state nor anything to defend from perceived trouble, but he folds his arms and gives Futakuchi the world’s most suspicious look in his doorway.

Which is exactly the reason Futakuchi called him.

He drags him inside, sets him down on one side of the couch, and flops down onto the other. His body still feels abnormally heavy, and dragging himself everywhere has been hell.

“Mind telling me what’s going on?” Shirabu demands, falsely polite.

“Shirabu, you’re my most skeptical friend.”

“We’re friends?”

“Not now, asshat,” Futakuchi groans. “I’m going to tell you something, and I’m going to need you to tell me I’m crazy. But more importantly, I need you to tell me I’ll be _fine_ afterward, okay?”

Shirabu must hear some uncharacteristically vulnerable note in Futakuchi’s voice, or perhaps he really does have a heart beneath all those layers of salt, because he squints at him and replies, “Okay.”

“I spent the night at Iwaizumi’s last night.”

“Did he finally help you work that stick out of your ass? You look a little more boneless than usual.”

“Let me _finish_ ,” Futakuchi nearly begs.

Shirabu falls silent. Expectantly so.

“I spent the night there because I physically could not come home. I was… attacked.”

Shirabu leans forward, entire demeanor changing. Alarm radiates off him and Futakuchi turns from the sight of his friend actually _caring_ about him. Gross.

“Here comes the weird part. It was by a monster.” Futakuchi cannot bear to look at the shift in Shirabu’s expression again as he dismisses all of Futakuchi’s panic, but he _needs_ this kind of response, too. He just has to psych himself up for it. “It was this fat fuzzy black thing with yellow eyes and spindly little limbs. And its mouth was _huge_ , and literally almost bit my head off. I’m a little shaken—I’m allowed to be, after something like that!”

“O… kay…” Shirabu replies, slowly, unsure now. Futakuchi still doesn’t look at him. “You were attacked… by a monster.”

“Oikawa and Matsukawa broke into my apartment, killed it, and apparently when I almost keeled over, they dragged me to Iwaizumi’s. He explained that they’re some kind of secret superhero force who fights these monsters and now I’m some kind of target. Also, Oikawa is an even bigger asshole than I thought. I’m kind of freaked out, because this all happened, and I’m a smart guy who knows this absolutely, definitely _did not_ happen,” Futakuchi rambles on.

“I think you are seriously upset about something, and I’m not going to dismiss that,” Shirabu says with a tentative hand on Futakuchi’s knee.

Maybe Futakuchi had also called Shirabu specifically over because he was a psych undergrad, and he ought to be good at shit like this.

But mostly he wants the skepticism. He doesn’t need coddling.

“It almost bit my head off. I’ve been looking for other bite marks all morning,” Futakuchi confesses in a low voice. “Its mouth was just… right over my head, Shirabu.”

“You know, night terrors can—”

“At least hear me out on the rest of my breakdown before bringing in nightmares,” Futakuchi hisses. “I _know_ it wasn’t a nightmare. My nightmares are full of stupid things like loneliness and crowds of strangers and a hell of a lot of falling dreams. And my teeth falling out.”

“That’s sexual, you know,” Shirabu tells him.

Futakuchi kicks him.

“Okay, I’m going to ask you something, and I want you to know that I’m absolutely not going to judge you no matter what. Did you take anything weird yesterday?”

“ _No_. I haven’t taken anything—I haven’t even drank anything since I went out with you last week.”

Shirabu leans forward until he can feel Futakuchi’s forehead, brushing his shaggy bangs out of the way. “You feel a little warm, but nothing too bad… You’ve been a little out of it, the past few weeks. Have you been feeling alright?”

“Apparently it was a depression monster,” Futakuchi jokes. With Shirabu, too, it falls flat. “Iwaizumi nearly called and made me an appointment with student health. Get that pitying look off your face—I can’t stand that from two people in one day. Those things are attracted to bad moods and feelings and shit, so I guess that’s why it’d been haunting me for awhile.”

“I know there are stigmas against it, but there’s nothing wrong with seeking help,” Shirabu quietly replies.

“You’re only saying that because you’re going to try making your living off that.”

“You’re a prick, but you’re clearly freaked out about something, and I don’t like it when you’re upset. _Or_ depressed, whether it’s from monsters or regular university life.”

This had been a bad idea, Futakuchi realizes then. Shirabu won’t even give him the _you’re a crazy asshole_ talk, just the _it’s okay to feel sad_ talk, and that is the opposite of what he needs right now.

 

—

 

Their group project is due on Tuesday, but the work is the furthest thing from Futakuchi’s mind.

A shadowy, staticky blob of bruise-blue and black ichor is attempting to chew on Oikawa’s leg.

“He attracts them like flies with that terrible personality of his,” Matsukawa offers halfheartedly, circling another passage in his notes. “They’re not too bothersome if you don’t let them stick to you for weeks on end. And you can’t feel anything, either. It doesn’t hurt.”

Futakuchi continues staring. It’s the size of a dog. It doesn’t have features, or teeth—its mouth looks like someone made a really sharp scribble and pulled it apart. Each of its ‘teeth’ are jagged and unmatching and can’t seem to catch on the fabric of Oikawa’s slacks.

“They’re annoying little buggers, but these things really aren’t that dangerous,” Oikawa dismissively adds. He kicks it off with a move so natural Futakuchi never would have suspected it, though he watches the ugly little shadow go tumbling away. “And… sorry, really. For letting you get so bad.”

They had watched him, for the past month, get chewed on by a hulk of blobby living shadow with teeth.

Futakuchi stares at them both.

“Show me the magic,” he tells them.

“We’re in the _library_ ,” Oikawa replies with clear disdain. “Schoolwork does still take precedence—”

“I haven’t been able to sleep in two days because I have nightmares about those things oozing out of the walls and eating my face,” Futakuchi says, fists clenching, “so you’re _going_ to show me this magic shit and let me prove to myself that I’m not going insane.”

Or, as Shirabu believes, having hallucinations brought on by a bad trip. No matter the fact that he’s _still_ seeing these things out of the corners of his eye, and he had crashed into someone just that morning when one had tried to launch itself at him while he’d been waiting in line at the cafe. He hadn’t gotten breakfast, too spooked to stay there any longer.

“I know it had been frightening,” Matsukawa says, completely serious and not at all pitying, and _god_ Futakuchi could kiss him, “but trust us when we say that these things generally aren’t a bother. I’m sorry you can see them now. But they’re just nuisances. Think of them like bees, except you can’t feel their stingers.”

“I’m _allergic_ to bees.”

“Ah, whoops.”

“We’ll show you what we can do later tonight, if you’re so desperate. But that’s it. Nothing else changes,” Oikawa says. He flips a page in his book and pretends to ignore Futakuchi, but Futakuchi has caught those nervous little glances he sends his way every so often. Futakuchi wants to punch him. “You can’t tag along with us or anything. You won’t join us. You should be able to push or kick the weaker shadows away from you, sometimes, but we’ll keep an eye out. You’ll be fine.”

“What about the stronger ones?” Futakuchi demands.

Both Matsukawa and Oikawa raise their heads. Matsukawa looks as calm as ever, but there is something _just_ sharper than usual in Oikawa’s eyes.

“You said the weaker ones. What about the stronger ones? Like the one that had tried to eat me?” Futakuchi reiterates.

Matsukawa sighs, and turns back to his notes. “That wasn’t one of the stronger ones.”

 

—

 

Futakuchi notices the rings for the first time only when they begin glowing.

Oikawa draws up the light like he’s spreading it with his fingers, painting over himself, until the light dies away with a rather glittery flare. Not only is he holding his gleaming, silver rapier again, casually and loosely like he’s held it all his life, his clothing has changed.

His high-necked cloak flutters with unseen wind around his calves, and he shoves it off of one shoulder in order to put his hand on his hip. It’s white on the outside, and red on the inside, clasped at his throat with something incredibly ornate and set in the center with what appears to be a ruby. White gloves come up nearly to his elbows, mimicking gauntlets despite the fact that they’re fabric. White boots come up to mid-thigh, something Futakuchi first stares at then _snorts_ at, because no matter anything else in this evening, _that_ is a sight.

What looks like some sort of corset leads into a bow in the small of his back, smushed slightly by the weight of the cloak. He has shorts on, leaving just a sliver of skin between the bottom hems and the boots, and most of that is the same vivid crimson, at odds with the starkness of the white.

Oikawa cocks his head to the side, twice as arrogant as normal, and his glasses slide down his nose with the motion. “Like what you see?”

“Y-You look like a—a prince crossed with fetish wear—!” Futakuchi gasps out, moments before he’s overcome with cackling.

Matsukawa barks out a laugh. “Kid, you have not seen _anything_ yet.”

He does not perform the same dazzling light show as Oikawa, but that’s to be expected, between the two of them. He simply pulls the light over himself like he’s tucking himself into bed. It sloughs off like water a moment later. Futakuchi now sees that this isn’t some matching uniform type deal.

Whereas Oikawa is accented in attention-grabbing scarlet, Matsukawa is garbed in far more muted shades of purple, leading into black. He has no cloak but instead a scarf, trailing down nearly to the ground on both ends, plum in color and lined with silver. His shirt is about the same shade of purple, collared and buttoned, with cuffs wrapped tight around his biceps. His suspenders and shorts are both black, with silver cuffs on the shorts, as are his fingerless gloves, and his boots are _far_ more practical: they come up to just under his knees, black, laced up, and look rather heavy.

But beneath the practical shoes and plain shorts are _fishnets_.

Matsukawa jiggles the whip in his hand while Futakuchi literally collapses to the ground in stitches.

“I win,” Matsukawa tells Oikawa.

“You win _what_?” Oikawa huffs, peeved despite the ridiculousness of it all.

It takes Futakuchi no small amount of time to catch his breath long enough to wheeze, “You look like a _bondage schoolboy_.”

“Yeah, I could see that,” Matsukawa says, twisting, examining himself.

Futakuchi curls into himself, gasping for air, still laughing like he’s drunk off his ass. Maybe he is. God, he _wishes_ he were, because that would explain a lot more of this than the outfits do.

Futakuchi decides to stay on the ground when he can _finally_ breathe somewhat normally again. His limbs feel tingly with too much laughter, and he turns to beam at Iwaizumi with the sincerity that only comes with a genuine good mood. “Your turn, Iwaizumi-san. Please, make a believer out of me.”

Iwaizumi has had his arms folded tight (read: defensively) across his chest ever since Oikawa donned his so-called battle armor. He impossibly crosses them tighter now, and raises an eyebrow like a threat. “Excuse me?”

“Please, show me yourself in fishnets and heels.”

“I’m not one of them,” Iwaizumi flatly informs him.

“Iwa-chan isn’t a knight,” Oikawa says around a coy hand.

“You call yourselves _knights_?!” Futakuchi howls and collapses into disbelieving laughter again.

“Do you want to see the magic or not? We’re trying to educate you here, so you don’t feel so bad or freaked out,” Iwaizumi snaps. Futakuchi laughs on, heedless of his rising temper. “Oikawa, show him.”

Oikawa happily marches over. Futakuchi continues laughing, because not only is his sense of danger skewed thanks to all of this, but he cannot take Oikawa seriously in that get-up, either. Neither of them will ever be able to boss him around ever again. He hopes he doesn’t share classes with them in the future, because he doesn’t think it’d be wise to burst out laughing in the middle of a lecture.

Futakuchi’s laughter _abruptly_ dies when Oikawa lifts him with one hand, as if he were light as a feather.

Futakuchi tries to hold onto some part of him for stability, but Oikawa holds him up high, over his head, grinning sharply. “O-Okay,” he squeaks. He’s not exactly used to getting manhandled in a normal sense, but Oikawa _tosses_ him into the air, then catches him again like it’s nothing. “Okay, okay, that’s—put me down now!”

“Super strength,” Oikawa says with all the smugness in the world. He drops Futakuchi. “More transformation means more power, and trust me, this is nowhere _close_ to Oikawa-san’s maximum strength. That is a far-off, impossible point!”

“I heal him when he gets his ass kicked anyway,” Matsukawa volunteers.

“And I just tag along sometimes,” Iwaizumi adds. “It’s a motley little crew, I know, but we’re doing a decent job at cleaning up these shadows from this part of the city. There are… others, too.”

Futakuchi does not crack any jokes about how high the depression rates must be around finals time; he is still feeling the leftover effects of his own worsened state, after all. And Iwaizumi doesn’t seem to like tasteless jokes. “So there’s an entire sentai team? How cute,” Futakuchi says instead.

“No one else works with us. So it’s just us!” Oikawa exclaims.

“No one else could stand you,” Iwaizumi retorts.

“You mentioned… stronger enemies,” Futakuchi says, delicately, and even Oikawa’s smile falters. “Is there anything else I should be looking out for? Am I just supposed to call one of you up if I run into some big, bad monster?”

“The worst enemies don’t look like monsters,” Iwaizumi says, after a long beat in which Futakuchi is _convinced_ he and Oikawa shared some kind of telepathy. Maybe that’s included. Maybe everything magical is real and the curtain is only now getting pulled back.

Maybe he’s close to hysterical.

Maybe he’s lucky and he really is drunk or high or hallucinating.

“They look like people, but more indistinct. Like you’re looking at them through water, or the reception is really bad,” Matsukawa says. He idly twirls his whip, looking like he doesn’t care about the subject matter at all. He has a good poker face, but his hand gestures are nervous. “Colorless, too. They always have black eyes.”

“How solid they are depends on how strong they are. Some look like ghosts, but some can touch even random people,” Iwaizumi continues. He’s adopted his defensive posture again. “The strongest can talk, too, but that’s pretty rare, don’t worry.”

“What am I supposed to do against these ghostly monsters?” Futakuchi asks as flippantly as he can manage.

“Run. You can’t kill them. No one’s ever managed,” Oikawa replies, voice utterly flat. He doesn’t even _try_ to sound unaffected. “Not even us. Apparently, they just disappear after awhile on their own. If you ever see one of those things, run, Ken-chan. We don’t need you dying for real.”

Futakuchi can’t find it in himself to laugh at this anymore.

 

—

 

It’s rare that he watches practice without Terushima to bother him about it, but sue him. Sometimes he genuinely misses the sport. He _had_ played it for years, and it holds a lot of fond memories for him, even if he can’t play anymore.

Purely by habit does his attention linger on Sawamura. Practice is winding down, he thinks, because Sugawara has come onto the court again, and they’re chatting together. They stand too close, and Sugawara touches Sawamura far too frequently for it to be anything platonic. He doesn’t remember anymore, but he _thinks_ it’s supposed to be a secret.

Sawamura strips off his sweaty shirt without warning. Futakuchi sits upright, high up in the front row of the bleachers, and pulls out his phone. Terushima is going to kick himself for missing this kind of show.

Sugawara leans over and kisses Sawamura’s back when they think no one is looking.

Yeah, definitely not a secret.

Good for them, he supposes—he can’t really fathom having enough courage to be all touchy-feely in public, much less on the sidelines of the court with most of the team still milling around. He misses that kind of camaraderie. Good teammates are valuable. And to care for someone that much, that you’re willing to risk embarrassment, trouble, or worse…

 _Oh, it seems I’ve become bitter in my old age,_ Futakuchi notes as he types out a text to Terushima.

He’s been feeling better, without that leech shadow on him, and he’s even managed to shoo away a couple of smaller ones, too. Those annoying upperclassmen of his had been right: these things really _aren’t_ a big deal.

One or two waft around the court, maybe the size of someone’s shoe, just large enough to be noticeable to Futakuchi. They’re small enough that they get almost stepped on and tugged around by people walking by, but the things make valiant efforts to cling to someone all the same. Ones that size, Futakuchi isn’t even certain _could_ hurt someone. Maybe just make them feel sad for a few moments. He’s scared to think of what the scale for those shadows is like, but maybe it’d be a good idea to know.

Terushima responds quickly, with far too many exclamation points and agonized emoji.

Futakuchi types out a response of his own (a _firm_ refusal to try to take a picture of Sawamura). He also points out that Sugawara is there as well, though he knows Terushima will even ask for the picture of both of them.

Sometimes he wonders if it’s _just_ Sawamura that Terushima is pining hopelessly for.

With practice over, Futakuchi doesn’t want to seem like any more of a creeper than he already is, so he grabs his bag and stands up. Sawamura and Sugawara are still chatting, but they’re walking now, if slowly, toward the locker rooms. They’ll probably go home and bake together and cuddle on the couch, or whatever poster children for Domestic Bliss did in their spare time. Disgusting.

Futakuchi wrinkles his nose and kicks at a cat-sized shadow that tries to climb his leg.

“Fine, fine, I’ll try to think happier thoughts,” he hisses at it.

Kamasaki hadn’t shown up to haunt practice; in fact, Futakuchi had not seen him since that day. _There’s_ a happy thought.

The shadow comes back with even more annoying determination.

Futakuchi kicks it again, trying to punt it off the bleachers and down onto the court below, when he catches sight of the few little ones already on the court trying to swarm Sawamura’s shoes.

 _They’re dangerous in numbers_ , Futakuchi uneasily recalls, but he doesn’t know what _kind_ of numbers. Were they talking two, or twenty? There are three or four, he thinks, but they’re so fuzzy that he cannot tell, and certainly not from that distance. He thinks Oikawa knows Sugawara, so maybe he should tell him about it. Or maybe they could exorcise the gym or something.

Then, to his surprise, Sugawara stoops and picks one off of Sawamura’s calf, tossing it away with a firm flick of his hand. Sawamura steps over the remainder, and they continue chatting happily before disappearing into the locker room. As the door swings shut behind them, the rest of the shadows go swirling in their wake, lost and aimless once more.

 _They can see them_.

Well.

Oikawa _had_ said there were others, and Oikawa _was_ friends with Sugawara, wasn’t he.

 

—

 

Futakuchi apologizes for every instance he had ever been a little shit to his upperclassmen whenever he deals with Koganegawa.

The kid is nice. He’s surprisingly bright, and he _can_ be taught, if only at length and by first getting on every single one of Futakuchi’s nerves. Futakuchi likes him, probably. He would like him _a lot_ more if he had gone to another university and they didn’t run into each other every few weeks.

He had just wanted a bagel for breakfast. He had _not_ wanted to be accosted in line doing so.

“Futakuchi-senpai!”

Futakuchi gives himself the mercy of scrubbing a hand over his face before turning to the owner of that grating voice. “Kogane, how are you.” Is he such an asshole that he can’t even make it sound like a question? Futakuchi awkwardly adds, “It’s been awhile. Nice to… see you.”

Koganegawa, looking both inhumanly awake _and_ inhumanly happy, brightens further. “I’m glad we got to run into each other! How have you been? How have all of your group projects been going?”

Futakuchi dimly recalls complaining about them the last time he had seen Koganegawa, at the library when he had first found out about all of the assignments. “Oh, they’re… fine. Almost done. You know.” He can’t, for the life of him, recall anything specific that had been going on in Koganegawa’s life. “How have your classes been going? How were… midterms?”

“I’ve only had two so far,” Koganegawa chirps, not at all deterred by what feels like the overwhelming awkwardness of the conversation. Futakuchi wishes his damn bagel would hurry up already. “Thank you for giving me your notes from last year for social psychology! They were surprisingly really organized!”

Futakuchi’s eye twitches at the inadvertent backhanded compliment. He doesn’t even remember giving Koganegawa his notes, but good for his past self. Something about this kid made him want to try a _little_ harder to be nice, even if he brought with him all the guilt and shame that came with what memories of his captaincy he can stand to recall.

“Great,” he replies through a tight smile. Koganegawa does not deserve even an ounce of Futakuchi’s issues, past or present. But he’s trapped here until he gets his food, and he doesn’t think Koganegawa has even ordered yet.

His day, so early and miserable already, crashes down further when the cafe door jingles open and none other than Kamasaki waltzes in.

He and Futakuchi lock eyes. Futakuchi goes rigid, angry for some reason he cannot comprehend, and Koganegawa turns curiously to see who has caught his attention. “Ah, Kamasaki-senpai!”

“You _know_ him?” Futakuchi cannot help but hiss.

“He was my English tutor last term when you got busy!”

This kid is going to kill Futakuchi yet.

Kamasaki swaggers over, looking perfectly composed and comfortable, and gives Koganegawa a bright grin. The smile he spares Futakuchi is significantly less wide, but also… warmer, somehow. The corners of his eyes crinkle, just a little, and Futakuchi would even dare call it a _fond_ look.

His irrational anger has not disappeared, but now Futakuchi finds his face feeling warm, too. It’s an awful combination.

So, of course, looking between them, Koganegawa _notices_. And he _asks_ , “Is he your boyfriend?”

“Who would want to date _him_?!” both Futakuchi and Kamasaki exclaim, too loudly, in damn near perfect unison.

Several people turn to stare. Koganegawa cocks his head to the side, both confused and amused, but at least he has the grace not to outright laugh at them. Futakuchi cannot bear to turn to see what kind of expression Kamasaki is making now, so he glares at the far wall and wills his cheeks to stop feeling so hot. “Sorry!” Koganegawa chirps without sounding sorry at all. “I thought you said you were with someone, Kamasaki-senpai.”

Futakuchi pays a little more attention to Kamasaki’s response than strictly necessary. But he still does not look at him.

“Ah, not really… no, not anymore,” Kamasaki admits, sheepishly.

“Whoever it was, they were an asshole then! You’re a good person who deserves a good relationship!” Koganegawa declares with all sincerity.

When Futakuchi (a weak man) glances over, he finds Kamasaki with a dusting of pink across his cheeks, scratching at his short hair with clear, but pleased, embarrassment. “Ah, thanks, kid. You too. I’m sure it’ll work out with that guy you like, too, so keep at it, ‘kay?”

Koganegawa brightens like the goddamn sun. Futakuchi was supposed to be the favorite upperclassman, so where the hell does Kamasaki get off?

And he didn’t even know Koganegawa had a crush. What the fuck.

 _Mercifully_ , preventing Futakuchi from standing there stewing, his order is ready and name is called.

A moment later, Kamasaki’s name is called, too.

“You didn’t even order,” Futakuchi hisses with too much venom.

Kamasaki, however, doesn’t seem at _all_ deterred by this unwarranted attitude. If anything, he seems used to it. He just prods Futakuchi’s shoulder with his phone, and says, “I ordered online, dumb brat. ‘Course, if I knew I could stand around and embarrass you in public, then I would’ve stopped in sooner.”

“Where do you _get off_ ,” Futakuchi snaps, while Kamasaki happily waves goodbye to Koganegawa (who again looks that awful mixture of confused and amused). “You don’t know me, I don’t know you, and you’re a jackass, you know that?”

“You’re prickly when you’re defensive,” Kamasaki replies with a grin. “Can’t believe I have the upper hand on you. This is too funny.”

Futakuchi gapes, outraged, at him. _No one_ has the upper hand on Futakuchi Kenji. (Except the list of people who regularly do, but fucking Kamasaki is _not on it_.) “You’re—You’re _teasing_ me! What are you, six? You’re trying to tease me like a preschooler pulling on some girl’s pigtails!”

Kamasaki reaches over, and for an impossible moment, for some _terrible_ reason, Futakuchi believes he’s going to tuck his too-long bangs behind his ear. It seems like such a familiar gesture.

Instead, Kamasaki gives a little tug.

It is then that Futakuchi knows he’s going to war with this man.

 

—

 

“Mai-chan, you’re a girl, right,” Futakuchi says with his most winning smile. The cafe bustles cheerily around them, and he has already set the stage by buying her a muffin.

She regards him flatly. Her voice is even flatter when she replies, “You can use feminine pronouns to refer to me, so take that as you will.”

“You know about romance and things, right?”

“That is the second worst possible direction you could have taken this in.”

Futakuchi is _sinfully_ curious about the actual worst possible direction, but he needs to stay on Mai’s good side, as impossible a feat as it usually is for him. “Look, there’s this guy, Kamasaki, and he’s going playground bully on me. Because I’m pretty sure he _likes_ me. It’s not the cute puppy crush Terushima has, this is like… worse.” He has no way to actually describe how he views Kamasaki’s feelings. Except, perhaps, _gross_.

Not that Kamasaki has said so much to him—most of what they’ve spoken about has been bickering and useless pleasantries—but it doesn’t take a genius to make an educated guess. Futakuchi doesn’t usually like leaps of logic, either. But he has no idea how else to explain Kamasaki’s stupid pulling of his hair (or the way he’d laughed it off afterward when Futakuchi had punched him, a little too hard).

Mai still hasn’t thawed, however.

Futakuchi tries to appeal to her sympathy. “Terushima is really horrible with feelings, you know that. And Shirabu would _never_ let me live it down, or stop laughing about it!” Ennoshita is also a bad idea, if only for the virtue of him being _too_ sensible. He’d probably say something like _Just talk to him_ , and that’s even worse than whatever cutting remarks Mai will direct at him.

“How well do you know this guy? You haven’t mentioned anything before,” she says, carefully neutral, but Futakuchi feels the hope bloom within him.

“It’s… new,” he hedges.

“How new?”

“Couple weeks,” he replies, still vague.

“ _Kenji_ ,” Mai scolds.

“We’ve spoken three times and I’ve punched him and he _teases me_. Teases. Me! He’s fixated on me—I’m almost convinced he’s stalking me.” He knows at least half of his paranoia _must_ be fueled by the awful things of those shadows gnawing on him, but Futakuchi can’t shake it. But he may as well lay all his cards on the table. “And…”

“And?”

“And it feels like I _know_ him from somewhere. Everything, even the goddamned teasing, seems familiar. Kinda… comfortable,” Futakuchi confesses. He knows his cheeks are red.

But this is what finally gets Mai to melt to his cause. She sets her phone down, giving him her full attention, and he can see she’s trying damn hard to bite back a smile. “So you might like him back.”

“That’s not where you were supposed to go with that.”

“Well, _do_ you know him?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Maybe we played against him in high school. Or you moved around a lot as a kid, didn’t you? Maybe you even had a class or two with him last year. There are a lot of ways to know someone.”

Futakuchi busies himself with his shaggy hair, flicking it back and forth. Mai huffs and reaches over to tuck it behind his ear for him. “I don’t know,” he grumbles, just to be a brat.

“Ask your mom? I can go back through my manager’s notes and see if his name pops up anywhere. But only on one condition,” she says, faking stern, and Futakuchi regards her with all the caution one might give a prowling tiger.

“And that is?”

She goes as far as wagging her finger in his face. Frankly, uncalled for. “If you _do_ know this guy, if you two know each other, then you admit he’s harassing you for a reason, and you go on a date with him.”

“Aren’t girls supposed to be _against_ harassment?” he complains and swats her hand away.

“Considering what a shit you can be, maybe you deserve it. Frankly, I think it’d be _hilarious_ to see you one-upped by someone else. But the point is whether or not you two actually know each other—and the even _bigger_ point is, do you _want_ to know him. You’d only come whining to me if you were torn on this.” Mai sits back in her seat, utterly pleased with herself. “You think you like him, too, but you aren’t sure. Because no one’s ever given you shit before.”

“ _Lots_ of people give me shit,” Futakuchi corrects. “You’re giving me shit right now.”

“I’m not going through my old volleyball notes unless you agree to pursue this,” Mai threatens.

“Bitch,” Futakuchi mutters, under his breath.

“Jackass,” Mai fondly replies, kicking him beneath the table.

 

—

 

Futakuchi cannot believe what he’s hearing. “ _What_?”

“Yeah,” his mother drawls, sounding as tired as ever, “Kamasaki? Little boy named Yasushi? They were our neighbors when you were a kid. They moved down the street when you were… shit, I don’t know. Five or so. It was before we moved, so…”

His mother delivers this news so _casually_ , like she didn’t just turn his world upside-down. As she tries to puzzle out the vague details of Futakuchi’s childhood timeline, Futakuchi can already hear Mai laughing at him, nay, _cackling_ , with flames up around her little hooked claws and devil tail.

She must never know.

“You two were inseparable. Think we have some old pictures of you, probably. Where did this come from?”

“I… think I just reunited with him,” he blankly replies.

So Kamasaki _remembered_ him? He acted like he was introducing himself. Or had it been the same strange pull of familiarity that spurred him to seek out Futakuchi? No, he still acted so familiar…

“You hung onto that boy every minute you could. Probably your first crush that didn’t involve my coworkers,” his mother wryly comments. “Cried for days when we had to move away. Think we have some old pictures of that, too. How has he been? Maybe I’ll give his mother a call…”

Futakuchi pinches the bridge of his nose and tries to remind himself that his mother cannot see his red cheeks over the phone. She could _guess_ it, but not _see_ it. He need not incriminate himself further. “He’s been fine, I guess. We’ve talked a couple of times.”

He lets his mother talk herself out on the subject of cute kids and how badly Futakuchi grew out of the cute phase. Their phone conversations never last long, anyway; it’s pure luck he got her for the sparse fifteen minutes they had.

He lets her go when she yawns and admits she should probably get to bed. It’s not quite seven, but she’d come off another sixteen-hour shift, so he doesn’t blame her. Nor does he look forward to that kind of future, but it’s what he had grown up with, so there are worse things. Probably.

 _So I knew him_ , he thinks, still stunned. What a strange coincidence.

 

—

 

“So, I have to ask something,” Futakuchi whispers while classmates at the front of the room drone on about their own presentation. He is seated by Oikawa and Matsukawa today, waiting their turn for their own presentation. Surprisingly, he feels prepared for it. His upperclassmen are nothing if not thorough.

“Hm?” Matsukawa hums, chin in hand. Oikawa, on his other side (Matsukawa has to keep them separated), leans forward a bit more, turning completely so he can look at Futakuchi. His glasses slide down his nose.

“Why the glasses?” Futakuchi asks with a gesture to his own temple, where they rest on Oikawa.

“It makes people look more intelligent, so they’re more likely to take you seriously. They’ve done studies on it,” Oikawa haughtily replies.

“No, no, I get that,” Futakuchi replies with a sigh. Shirabu has his own pair of reading glasses for the very same reason. “I meant when you’re—knighting, or whatever the verb is. Even Matsukawa wears them.”

Both of them go quiet for a long time. Futakuchi won’t turn from where he’s pretending to listen to the presentation on the history of the IUPAC, but he does nudge Matsukawa with his shoulder.

Finally, Oikawa quietly admits, “They’re to help hide our identities.”

“They’re not even _sunglasses_!”

“We do most of that stuff at night,” Matsukawa replies. “Contrary to certain songs, sunglasses at night are _not_ a good idea, especially when fighting already dark-colored monsters.”

“You two are ridiculous. _Glasses_?” Futakuchi huffs. Matsukawa nudges him back. “You could’ve done masks, or hats, or…”

“It’s worked so far.”

“How have you not gotten arrested yet?”

“Magical outfits help.”

Their presentation is next, and despite Kuroo throwing pens at Oikawa for the first two minutes, it goes well.

And then Futakuchi loses his easy access to the two magical people he knows, just like that.

Matsukawa at least kicks one of the little shadows trying to follow Futakuchi to his table into sparkling motes, and gives him what Futakuchi hopes is a supportive nod.

But it still makes Futakuchi feel rather alone when class ends and he parts ways, to go back to his empty apartment alone, followed by a trail of steadily growing shadows.

 

—

 

“Come _on_ ,” Futakuchi growls, hauling Terushima bodily behind him. He cooperates as well as a leashed cat. “You’re _going_ to talk to Sawamura, and you’re _going_ to be _my_ excuse to talk to Sugawara while you do.”

“You still haven’t told me why it’s _so urgent_ that you have to!”

“We have mutual friends,” Futakuchi replies.

Originally, they’d planned on _coincidentally_ running into the happy couple on their way out of the gym from practice. Terushima had insisted on getting coffee first, however, so they had been running late, and now that they’re jogging up to the gym, they actually find that someone else is already speaking to them.

Futakuchi doesn’t recognize the guy. He’s not quite as tall as Futakuchi, probably, but certainly taller than both Sawamura and Sugawara, though by the way he plays with his fingers and politely inclines his head each time they speak, he is probably younger than them. The guy is gorgeous, giving Oikawa a run for his money; he has effortlessly curly hair the color of charcoal, and he is dressed impeccably in a button-up and slim-fitted pants. He carries himself with the natural ease of a model.

Beside him, even Sugawara pales.

He’s not Futakuchi’s usual type, but he would make an exception.

As soon as he notices their approach, Sawamura stops speaking with the air of someone trying to keep a secret. Unsubtly. Sugawara smiles at them both, and the stranger glances over at them with cool indifference.

Futakuchi and Terushima pull up short just in front of them, at the edge of the courtyard leading to the gym. “Sawamura-san!” Terushima says, his own giddy happiness overcoming any earlier suspicion of Futakuchi’s motives. “I was hoping to catch you after practice. But we didn’t mean to interrupt…?”

“No, it’s alright,” Sawamura replies with a rather warm smile. “Akaashi, this is Terushima and Futakuchi. And this is Akaashi. I think he’s the same year as you two.”

Futakuchi has never seen him around campus; that’s the type of face you remember. Vividly. But at the sound of Futakuchi’s own name, Akaashi’s eyes widen, and his mouth falls open in unfiltered shock. Futakuchi arches an eyebrow at _that_ reaction.

“Never seen you around, and I think I’d remember a guy like you,” Terushima says, somehow managing a polite leer. Only he could.

“I’m an art student,” Akaashi replies with his attention still on Futakuchi. “You’re… Futakuchi-san? I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Woah, you have a _reputation_ ,” Terushima says and elbows Futakuchi in the side.

“Oh, what _kind_ of reputation is this?” Sugawara asks. He sounds innocent despite the blatantly lecherous glint in his eyes.

“Kamasaki-san talks about him,” Akaashi says. His eyes slide away again with all the smoothness of water. His composure is back like it’s a coat he can shrug on.

“Oh. Does he.” Remarkably, Futakuchi sounds just as composed. Inside, he’s seething—and embarrassed—that he’s _curious_.

Sawamura breaks into a loud, booming laugh. Sugawara hastily (and poorly) hides his own laughter in Sawamura’s shoulder. “I never made that connection before! Oh, _you’re_ Kamasaki’s Futakuchi!”

“He talks about you all the time,” Sugawara adds with a wide, shit-eating grin that Futakuchi had _no idea_ he was capable of making. He’d probably be proud, in other circumstances.

“Dude,” Terushima says while Futakuchi’s face flames. He doesn’t say anything else. That, somehow, makes it worse.

“I didn’t mean to start anything,” Akaashi says with no apology in his tone. He inclines his head up toward Futakuchi. “I’ve just heard much about you.”

“All good things, I hope,” Futakuchi replies through a tight smile.

Akaashi smiles back at him, sharp and thin as a knife. “Definitely.” Then, the smile is gone, and he politely waits until Sawamura and Sugawara have stopped laughing. “I’ll be heading out, then. This weekend, please, since I’d rather it be taken care of sooner rather than later. I’m beginning to seriously worry for Bokuto-san. Goodbye, and it was nice meeting you both.”

He even gives them a little bow, making it seem graceful, even with the awkward way Terushima tries to mimic him. Futakuchi glares at his retreating back, though more out of confusion than anything else. His mind has ground down into a circular repetition of _Kamasaki talks about me?_

“That guy’s name is Akaashi?” Terushima asks, head cocked. “Like, he’s the _Akaashi_ that Bokuto-senpai—?”

Futakuchi doesn’t know the volleyball team as well as Terushima does, but he recognizes the name, at least. Sugawara nods and leans in like he’s going to share a terrible and delicious secret. “Yeah, that’s _him_. Apparently everyone has reputations, huh? But Akaashi-kun and Bokuto are _absolutely_ dating without having any knowledge of it. It’s really cute, actually.”

“Cute and _frustrating_ ,” Sawamura growls.

“Cute,” Sugawara corrects.

“Suga, you don’t deal with Bokuto’s _fretting_. You’d think Akaashi were made of glass—!” Sawamura cuts himself off with a sidelong glance at Terushima and Futakuchi. “A-Ah, well. Sorry. Team drama and all that. What did you two want?”

“Actually, I was hoping to ask Sugawara-san something in private?” Futakuchi asks. Sawamura looks _incredibly_ curious—and Sugawara more so. They probably assume he’s meaning to play wingman somehow.

But Sugawara nods, and they walk off a little way. Futakuchi can hear Terushima stammering his way through wishing Sawamura luck during the next away game (which isn’t for another five weeks) behind them, and he cannot help but snicker into his fist. They’re near the doors to the gym by the time Sugawara slows, and turns to Futakuchi expectantly.

“You’re really loyal to your friend, you know that?” he starts.

Futakuchi grins. “Yeah, but that’s actually not what this is about today.”

Sugawara hums, prompting him to continue, but Futakuchi realizes he has no delicate way of broaching the topic. He doesn’t want to flat-out say anything about magic or shadows, just on the off chance that Sugawara _doesn’t_ know anything, and of course this is the one time he doesn’t see any of those horrible little monsters.

“So, uh… I guess I… I mean, I’d like to ask you for advice,” Futakuchi eventually says. Sugawara nods, entire presence radiating the type of kindness that isn’t pressuring or judging. It’s rare for Futakuchi to find in his friend circle (as much as he may love them). “I’ve recently found out some things, and I’m having trouble navigating where it puts me in life.”

Sugawara nods again, chin in hand, finger tapping his cheek. Futakuchi looks at that minute movement so he doesn’t have to look at how _warm_ Sugawara’s eyes are.

“Does this have anything to do with Kamasaki?” Sugawara eventually asks.

“What? No.” Well, _yes_ , but not what he wanted to speak to Sugawara about. “No, I mean… It has to do with Oikawa and Matsukawa.”

“What did they do now?” Sugawara asks with a heavy sigh. Futakuchi thinks it’s only half-joking.

“They, uh, kind of dragged me into the world of magic,” Futakuchi tells him.

Sugawara falls silent.

He’s quiet for so long that Futakuchi _has_ to meet his eye. Sugawara doesn’t seem upset, or surprised, or all that kind anymore. He just seems thoughtful.

But Futakuchi knows thoughtful. This is the kind of calculated, measured silence that Oikawa is capable of, that gives Shirabu pause before he says something particularly snide, that Futakuchi himself is capable of. With this shift in the conversation, Futakuchi has bared perhaps more than he ought to have, and Sugawara has dropped the happy sunshine persona entirely.

Just for this one, thoughtful pause.

Then, Sugawara smiles again, as if nothing has changed. “It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?” he asks.

“Uh, yeah…”

“I know it can seem overwhelming, but don’t let it get to you, okay? There’s nothing to be worried about with those pipsqueaks, and we’ve got the big ones under control. If you’re half as sharp as I think you are, you’ve probably guessed, then, that that’s what Akaashi-kun was worried about. If you’re worried about that, then don’t, alright?” Sugawara finishes with a too-hard pat on the back.

Futakuchi has _no idea_ what he means. Like hell he’ll admit that, however.

“Terushima doesn’t know,” he says instead.

“I figured, otherwise he’d probably try to swarm Daichi even more than he already does,” Sugawara replies, clearly amused by the notion. He whacks Futakuchi on the back again, earning a strangled wheeze. “Don’t worry, it’s all in capable hands, Futakuchi-kun!”

 

—

 

Futakuchi commandeers the unused half of an old anatomy notebook and begins listing everything he knows.

Oikawa and Matsukawa are magic users who fight evil, or something. Iwaizumi knows and helps them.

Sugawara, Sawamura, and Akaashi are aware of magic, but in hindsight, Futakuchi had never gotten confirmation on what sort of roles they play. He’s going to assume magic users as well, but tentatively.

There are two kinds of shadows: the smaller, indistinct kind that scuttle around and feed on negative energies. There are the larger kind, too, humanoid and more dangerous. Futakuchi has yet to see one.

And Kamasaki.

And _Kamasaki_.

Futakuchi rarely believes in coincidence, but he would have given the guy the benefit of the doubt for the weird feeling, or perhaps even the childhood neighbors thing. But Kamasaki knows Sawamura, and Sugawara, and Akaashi, and apparently _talks about him_. (Futakuchi still can’t quite wrap his mind around that bit, either, for unrelated and painfully embarrassing reasons.)

There is no way he’s not connected to all of the other sudden weirdness in his life.

And, thanks to his juvenile manner of flirting, Futakuchi knows he has a way to pump the guy for information.

What better way to get to know someone (read: find out how deeply he’s connected to magical knighthood and how the fuck Futakuchi fits into his schemes) than a first date?

Futakuchi patiently waits for Mai to stop laughing over the phone.

“S-So not only were you guys _childhood friends_ —” she pauses, gasping and wheezing unattractively, “—you’re going on a _date_! Without me goading you! You’re _willingly_ r-reconnecting—oh god, my stomach hurts—”

“I am so glad we’re close enough that you take such delight in my personal miseries,” Futakuchi tells her.

Mai laughs harder. Her erratic breathing is actually beginning to sound quite painful. Futakuchi has no pity for her.

“I was wondering if my dear friend would be so kind as to help me figure out a good place for a first date. Somewhere I could speak to him, preferably, since I’d _love_ to get to know him better,” Futakuchi continues. “As you and Shirabu are fond of telling me, it _has_ been awhile since I’ve been on a date. I’m sure I’ve forgotten how.”

He waits her out, until she’s something approaching coherent.

“O-Okay. Okay. So. You have a date with him,” she starts after several deep, gulping breaths.

“Actually, not yet. I need to ask him. But I’d like to have a plan of attack in mind.”

“Alright,” Mai replies, a little less excited, “that’s fair. Though it’s not an _attack_.”

“It is if I want information.”

“Or you could admit you genuinely find his company entertaining, if nothing else.”

Futakuchi scoffs, as loudly as he can, directly into the phone. “He’s an _ass_ who dared to tease me. I just need to figure out if he actually remembers me, and stuff.”

“And stuff,” Mai repeats dubiously.

 _And stuff_ for Futakuchi: find out about magic, then wring him mercilessly for further information.

 _And stuff_ for Mai: “So you want his dick down your throat.”

He scoffs, even louder, into the phone. “That’s _lewd_ , Mai-chan! Who raised you to be so _dirty_?”

“I know more about your sex life than I _ever_ wanted to know, so I reserve the right to turn that back on you at my leisure. And for your information, I _was_ going to say up your ass, but I haven’t actually seen this guy yet, so I’m not sure if this is the _I want to destroy him in every possible way including bed_ kind of crush or the _I want him to destroy me in every possible way including bed_ kind—”

“Those are not the only two options,” Futakuchi interrupts.

“Maybe if you admitted you have _feelings_ for other people occasionally,” Mai drawls, absolutely undeterred. Why is he friends with her again? He doesn’t deserve teasing from anyone, friends or near-strangers. “I think you’d hang up on me if I _ever_ insinuated you wanted to hold someone’s hand.”

Futakuchi debates it for a long moment, just to make a point, but in the end, he actually had called her for help. “The date,” he reminds her, “I need help planning a first date. Movies are out because I’d like to speak with him. Are restaurants still allowed, or is that too involved for a first date?”

“Have you done research on this?” she asks.

“I may have googled a few things.”

“Don’t overthink this. That’s your first date rule number one, alright? Here’s what you do. You text him, and you ask—”

“I don’t have his number,” Futakuchi interrupts.

Mai pauses, and he can practically hear her counting herself down from ten. “Alright, so you _talk to him_ , like a civilized human being, and you don’t get into any childish bickering for the two minutes required to ask him out. Why not give him the choice? Ask him if he wants to grab a drink or dinner, and see how it plays out. Ask him what _he_ likes to eat, or what he wants to do.”

“This isn’t a plan of attack,” he grumbles, more annoyed than he dares let on.

“A date isn’t an assault on enemy territory.”

“With him, it is, trust me.”

“ _No_ , Futakuchi,” Mai sighs.

 

—

 

“Bokuto, look _out_!”

Nearly too late, Sawamura throws down a wall of fire between Bokuto and the shambling, staticky monster. It reels back with a soundless hiss, and he jumps at the sudden proximity of flames. He does not let go of Akaashi, however.

Not that it stops Akaashi from scolding him. “Bokuto-san, you are _not_ a knight. You can’t be jumping headfirst into danger! That isn’t how this works.”

“That thing almost _ate you_!” Bokuto snarls back. Akaashi drags him from the fire, while Sawamura stands between them and the humanoid shadow trying to claw its way through the flames, his naginata raised and glowing white with heat.

“Civilians shouldn’t be fighting, anyway,” Kamasaki pointedly adds. He draws his bow again, arrow springing to life already notched in place, and pegs the shadow in its face. It only staggers back a step. “We’re not making any headway.”

“You need to let me go,” Akaashi tells Bokuto, cupping his face in his hands with too much tenderness for polite company. Sawamura and Kamasaki kindly look away. “Bokuto-san, I need to fight this. I need to protect you.”

“I can protect _you_!” Bokuto stubbornly insists. He sounds ready to cry.

“That’s not how this works. As I’ve told you, you cannot force it, and there may not even be any power here for you.”

“Yeah, you’d probably need more than us to get started,” Sawamura says, a valiant attempt at boosting his ego. They may be teammates on the court and off, but it’s a shoddy try at best. “Let’s pull back for tonight.”

“This is too close,” Akaashi says at once. “It’s too close to us.”

“C’mon, we can draw it away before ditchin’ it,” Kamasaki wearily offers. “You two can head home. Bokuto, that _definitely_ means you, man. Nearly shat myself when ya ran into the fight.”

Bokuto sticks his tongue out, petulantly, but also tired. He, too, is only offering attempts. Akaashi wiggles out from his grip, after assuring himself that they’re both fine again, and waves farewell.

“Go on, Sawamura, get back home to your husband. Bring home the bacon or whatever he thinks you’re doing tonight,” Kamasaki calls after them with a hand cupped around his mouth. Sawamura puts up his middle finger without looking back.

“I think Suga-chan would want that shadow’s head on a pike before he wanted bacon,” Bokuto replies, _almost_ sounding amused. But the dejected slump to Bokuto’s normally proud, strong shoulders is telling. Sawamura creates another wall of flames between them and the shadow, and then dismisses his magical garb, pulling Bokuto along with him as they leave.

“I don’t understand why it doesn’t work for him,” Kamasaki mutters. “The drive is certainly there. Even _you_ can’t deny that, Akaashi.”

“I wouldn’t deny that,” Akaashi replies. “But you and I both know why he won’t become a knight. There aren’t any rings available.”

“He’d be a helluva powerhouse, though. We coulda used something like that.”

Akaashi does not respond this time. They both get to work drawing the enemy away from so close to home.

 

—

 

Futakuchi does not have Kamasaki’s number, or know his major, or even any classes he might be taking. He does not wish to embarrass himself further with Sawamura, either, and he does not want to explain himself to Terushima about why he must see him again.

So Futakuchi swallows his pride and texts Koganegawa.

It takes him nearly two hours to reply, but when he does, it’s full of too many exclamation points and enough emoji to somehow accurately convey the same amount of starry-eyed exuberance he normally gives Futakuchi. Feeling bad he’s just asking for a favor, Futakuchi promises to have brunch and catch up properly with him some time, something that leads to even _more_ exclamation points.

Futakuchi is, somehow, exhausted by the time he gets Kamasaki’s number.

It takes him another three days to figure out the right amount of casualness for a first text. He wants to start a conversation, but one with an angle, but a polite one. One that doesn’t involve arguing or too much filth right away. Futakuchi does not mention magic, or any of their apparent mutual friends, though he’ll gladly bring up Koganegawa if asked.

It is only after his painstakingly created message is sent that he realizes he didn’t say who it was _from_.

But Kamasaki answers before Futakuchi can make any additions.

And he, of course, seemingly already _had_ Futakuchi’s number, because he doesn’t ask who is attempting to (badly) ask him out via text. Instead, he just asks, all casual and stupidly smooth, “ _sure, lets grab drinks tomorrow nite_ ”.

Futakuchi heaves a sigh of relief, and then hates himself for it. Dinner would have been _nice_. Perhaps too nice and not as casual as he’d been hoping for, but he could’ve survived. Drinks had a lower emotional requirement, though. And easier to ditch if necessary.

Maybe Mai is right and he has been reading too many dating articles online.

But he catches himself smiling when he types out an agreement.

Just as quick, he squashes it, because Futakuchi refuses to have anything like excitement or happiness when thinking about a first date with a bastard like Kamasaki. He just wants to find out what the hell is going on with the weirdness in his life.

And maybe touch his arms. Futakuchi must know, for science (and potentially to have an excuse to talk to Oikawa again), if his biceps are as nice as Iwaizumi’s.

He finds himself wondering how nicely he should dress, and how nicely _Kamasaki_ will dress, and this time, he does not deny his mild, minor, tiny, absolutely miniscule amount of excitement.

 

—

 

They meet at a little dive bar with a rock ‘n roll theme. It overwhelmingly suits Kamasaki. It feels _inappropriate_ how much it suits Kamasaki. Futakuchi relaxes at once, pleased that Kamasaki clearly hadn’t tried to suggest something neutral, or, heaven forbid, something that might suit Futakuchi in some misguided effort to please him.

Futakuchi is better-dressed between them, but that really only works in his favor, because it means he gets to watch Kamasaki ogle him and try to be subtle about it. Not that Kamasaki is any slouch; he looks nice, Futakuchi dares think, in dark, straight-legged jeans and a monochromatic plaid button-up. His sleeves are rolled up, of course, just past his elbow. Futakuchi keeps eyeing his arms with his own unfortunate lack of subtlety.

It’s early enough in the night that the bar isn’t packed, nor has the heat died off from the day, so Kamasaki keeps his jacket on the back of his chair. Futakuchi’s own sleeves are folded—nearly—halfway up his forearms, but nothing brutish or loosely cool like Kamasaki’s entire being.

They don’t exchange more than pleasantries until after they have their drinks.

Then, Futakuchi cocks his head to the side, just low enough that he can look up at Kamasaki and give him a cool yet coy look, he asks, “We know each other, don’t we?”

Kamasaki balks. Futakuchi likes gaining an early advantage. “You remember me?” he asks with an entire rainbow of emotion crossing his face.

Futakuchi certainly picks out _hope_ among them. “Honestly, not really, but my mother said we were neighbors when we were kids. So, you knew who I was, somehow?”

Kamasaki’s face falls again, and if Futakuchi weren’t paying so much attention to his face (in the name of gathering intel, of course), he would have missed it. “Well, yeah. Weird set of coincidences, but you’re probably thinkin’ I’m some sort of weird stalker by now, aren’t ya?”

“It has crossed my mind,” Futakuchi replies. He tongues at the end of his straw; Mai had suggested some fruity drink the last time they’d gone out, and he would gladly sacrifice any amount of supposed masculinity to try her suggestions. (Kamasaki had not commented, grudgingly earning a point.)

“I saw your name on one of the pre-med mailing lists,” Kamasaki says.

It makes sense, but Futakuchi doesn’t buy it, for no other reason than his bullshit radar going off. It’s generally very finely tuned. “And so you… what, conspired to bump into me on my way to class?”

Kamasaki laughs, right in the face of Futakuchi’s cool-headed suspicion. “Nah, that was a happy coincidence! What about you, huh? You did some digging, I heard, and you wound up with my number at some point. Why were _you_ sleuthin’ around?” He sets his chin in his palm and offers Futakuchi a sharklike grin.

He offers him a _challenge_.

“Didn’t you admit earlier that you were putting off stalker vibes? I’m a young man looking to protect himself in a strange, big city,” Futakuchi innocently replies. He leans back in his chair, a clear signal: _I am not going to play by your rules._

“You’re a hundred and eighty some centimeters of snark and sass. No one’s going to mess with you.”

“You are,” Futakuchi points out.

Kamasaki’s grin widens further. He looks as if he’s having the time of his life. Futakuchi wonders if that means this is a good date so far. “I’m taller,” he smugly replies.

“ _Barely_ ,” Futakuchi retorts. “And all the more reason to look to protect myself from weird, muscular strangers.”

Kamasaki puts up his free arm, and Futakuchi is drawn to the movement like a moth to a flame.

Kamasaki _flexes_. “Muscular, huh?”

Futakuchi thinks he may be drooling. He quickly swallows.

“I can see where your tastes run,” Kamasaki says with an infuriatingly self-satisfied chuckle. “So, is that why the sudden change of heart? I wasn’t exactly expectin’ ya to go and track me down outta the blue.”

Futakuchi swallows again before answering. He must push this conversation back into safer territories. “It occurred to me that we had mutual friends and I still knew so little about you. I don’t like secondhand information, so I thought I could ask you myself.”

Kamasaki laughs again in sheer delight. “ _Liar_! You’re a gossip, and if you weren’t scared stiff of Akaashi, you’d have already tracked him down to grill ‘im.”

“Well, why do _you_ go around telling people about me?!” Futakuchi snaps back. “Apparently, thanks to you, I have a _reputation_.”

Kamasaki scratches at those dumb dark sideburns of his. It may be the dim lighting of the bar, but Futakuchi _thinks_ his dumb cheeks are red, too. “Well, y’know, we have a… thing.”

“Thing.”

“History, ‘n stuff. I was… real excited about seein’ you again. A man’s entitled to talk to his friends about that sort of excitement!”

“You were talking about a crush like a schoolgirl,” Futakuchi deadpans.

Kamasaki _definitely_ flusters, turning even redder, but he does not refute the claim. “Look, I… got nothin’, really, to defend myself against that. But y’know, _you’re_ the one who instigated this now, so clearly it ain’t just me. Why else would you be _so_ keen on hangin’ out with me tonight?”

Kamasaki tries to turn the end of that into another leer. He tries, so hard, to get back on stable ground. Perhaps he even means to gain back the upper hand by embarrassing Futakuchi in turn.

That won’t do at all.

With all the disinterest in the world, Futakuchi swirls his drink and asks, “You’re magic, aren’t you?”

The pleasing flush and smile both slide off Kamasaki’s face. “…So you know about that stuff, huh?”

“Yes. I’d like to know more, which is why I invited you out tonight.” _Definitely not to ogle you further and figure out why I feel so comfortable around you_.

Kamasaki sighs, crosses his arms, and leans back in his chair. The teasing atmosphere evaporates, just like that. He looks like a surly dog, and while he’s not quite _glaring_ down at the table, it’s close enough. “Yeah, I’m one of the knights, so yeah, technically magic.”

“Technically?” Futakuchi parrots. Oikawa had been very firm on the _yes we are magic_ front.

“I’m all out,” Kamasaki bitterly replies.

“I didn’t know you could run out.”

“Most people don’t. There, you’re learning about magic now. Anything else you wanted from me?”

Futakuchi doesn’t like the new, darker mood. This is a _serious_ dark mood. Not because he wants to make Kamasaki smile again, but more because Futakuchi hasn’t been on a date in a long time and doesn’t want this to ruin his long-running streak of not having bad dates, he replies, “I want to see your stripper outfit.”

“My _what_?!” Kamasaki exclaims, far too loud for the bar.

Futakuchi gives him a sly, smug smile. Kamasaki’s face grows a little less angry. “The magic outfit that makes people look like strippers. I’ve seen them, and I know you must have one.”

Kamasaki’s mouth twitches. Not quite a smile. “That’s not fair, ‘cause I wouldn’t get anything out of that. I don’t know who spilled these secrets to someone so bratty—”

“It was Oikawa.”

“Ah.” Kamasaki is clearly trying to hold in a smile now. It doesn’t look as sharp as before, however; this one has the edges softened by _something_ Futakuchi doesn’t wish to dissect. (But it makes him feel better.) “That explains it. Still, these ain’t tricks to trot out at parties. There’s danger involved, and monsters and shit.”

“I’m aware. I want to know more—” _about you_ , he almost finishes. Futakuchi wishes desperately to know why he can read Kamasaki so easily, and seemingly know exactly how to drag him out of moods or bicker with him like it’s a pastime. This knowledge is not from long lost childhood memories.

Kamasaki sets his elbows on the table and leans in again. He raises both eyebrows. “Yeah?”

Futakuchi leans in, too. Kamasaki is nearly _magnetic_. He almost wonders if this is magic, too—

When he reels back with a shocked gasp that isn’t half as dramatic as he wishes. “This isn’t some _soulmate_ bullshit, is it?! You _bastard_!”

If Futakuchi’s outburst were not loud enough, Kamasaki rocks back in his chair, roaring with laughter. Futakuchi ducks his head, avoiding the curious eyes of the other patrons. His face flames. Kamasaki slaps the table, struggling to catch his breath, and Futakuchi swears he sees tears in the asshole’s eyes.

He rather thinks that going from magic, to a strange sense of familiarity, to wondering about soulmates is a sound logical leap.

Apparently not.

He’s _definitely_ been reading too many dumb romance articles online.

When the first understandable words out of Kamasaki’s mouth are, “Y-You think we’re _soulmates_?!”, Futakuchi buries his head in his folded arms and prays for death.

Oh well, his streak is ruined now. It’s a bad first date. Completely unsalvageable. His dignity will never recover, and he can only hope it’s in Kamasaki’s ugly heart to never mention this to anyone who may let it get back to Futakuchi. Who the hell accuses their date of being _soulmates_ with them?

Futakuchi feels a hand on the back of his head. It’s not the tentative, shy touch of someone unused to him, nor is it the happy firmness of someone still joking around. Instead, Kamasaki’s fingers card through his hair a few times, and he informs him, “Your hair is really soft, you know that?”

Futakuchi raises his head to glare at him through narrowed eyes. “Compliments will get you nowhere. Forget this ever happened.”

“Don’t you even want an _answer_?” Kamasaki teases, shark grin back in place. No, now that smirk of his is worse: he’s scented blood. “C’mon, Kenji-kun, it’s so _cuuuute_ how you thought—”

Futakuchi swats his hand away. “There’s no way,” he growls, “I could ever be soulmates with someone like _you_. But there’s been a lot going on in my life lately, and with magic and shit, I had jumped to the wrong conclusion. Tell anyone about his, and I’ll dump _all_ of the little black shits that follow me around all day onto you. You’ll drown.”

Kamasaki pulls back his hand, only to lace his fingers together and set his chin atop. His smile becomes the thing horror writers dream about. Futakuchi has the awful feeling that he’s sweating.

“You have no idea to do with me, do you?” Kamasaki asks in absolute, unadulterated glee.

“I can’t figure you out,” Futakuchi agrees in utter agony. He has nothing else left to lose.

“I’ll take pity on ya, and I’ll tell you now that we’re not soulmates. Not sure those exist, though that’s a nice sentiment. I didn’t think that kinda romance was your style, though.”

“I don’t look like the romantic type?” Futakuchi flatly asks. (His search history would disagree.)

“You look like you like a challenge. Who’d want a romance that just falls into their lap like that?” Kamasaki replies.

And damn if he’s not right about that, too. Futakuchi wishes he had a mirror to look into; is he _that_ easy to read? Did Mai put him up to this? Was he a psych student, too, like Shirabu, or was he just going full Sherlock here? “What’s your major?” Futakuchi asks, pride still too wounded to maintain much true suspicion.

“Sports medicine, a year ahead of ya.”

“Does that kind of major help much with magical endeavors?”

“At least I know what to do with a torn muscle,” Kamasaki replies, shrugging. “What else did ya wanna know about magic? Can’t imagine Oikawa was all that helpful.”

“He dragged me into this, told me monsters are gonna follow me forever, and then ditched me,” Futakuchi agrees. “ _Depression_ monsters. It’s nice to know I haven’t suddenly and rapidly developed something, but it’s _awful_.”

“Have you talked to anyone about this?” Kamasaki asks. He has the same kind of concerned, parental tone that Iwaizumi adopted. Futakuchi hates it. As soon as Futakuchi raises his head, however, bristling, Kamasaki backtracks. “I mean—what do you mean by suddenly?”

“I have friends who are psych students. A couple months ago, I just started feeling…” Futakuchi trails off, frowning, then _scowling_. “What the hell, this is _not_ first date talk. I don’t care if it’s magical in nature. If I can fling them off now, I’ll survive, and I’ll go to student health or whatever. What exactly is it that you magical _knights_ or whatever do?”

“Kill shadows,” Kamasaki replies, simple as that.

“And… that’s it? Why do you have to wear booty shorts for that?”

“ _I_ don’t,” Kamasaki snorts. He levels a disbelieving look at Futakuchi, and asks, “Did you _really_ take Oikawa and Matsukawa as your only samples?”

“Then show me yours,” Futakuchi says with a grin, however forced. “Prove me wrong.”

“You got some kinda kink or something?”

“Are we drunk enough for kinky conversation?” he asks, as innocently as he can manage.

And Kamasaki, damn him, calls his bluff. He pretends to adjust one of the rolled-up cuffs of his shirt, and remarks, “I don’t believe in doin’ anything drunk I wouldn’t do sober. And I gotta say, I have _quite_ a few guesses as to what a guy like you likes.”

“A guy like me,” Futakuchi repeats, eyes on Kamasaki’s arm.

“Oh, definitely.”

The shark grin is back. Futakuchi doesn’t mind it so much right now, but he clarifies, “I like men who are bigger than me, that’s it.”

“Uh-huh,” Kamasaki replies. Grinning. Smugly.

“I know your type, too,” Futakuchi informs him. “Cocky, for sure. Looks halfway decent, so you’re not used to too many people saying no to you. You’re straight-laced but talk a big game, and balk at any kind of true deviance from the norm, outside of dominant posturing. You think you’re a gift to any lovers you bed, but you’re mediocre at best.”

Kamasaki stares at him, and Futakuchi sips at his drink, sparing him a cool look.

“Am I wrong?”

Kamasaki begins snickering, smothering himself with one arm, shoulders shaking from the force of it. At least he’s not outright laughing at Futakuchi again, but he sighs, because he’d thought he could finally win another one. At the very least, he expected a larger blow to his ego.

“You’re a riot, you know that?” Kamasaki says. His cheeks are rosy with laughter, eyes watery again. Happiness looks annoyingly good on him.

Futakuchi glowers at the far wall and gulps down more of his drink. “Aren’t you going to let me win at least _one_ in good humor?”

“Did you _want_ pity wins?”

“I feel like I should be winning more. Why aren’t I? You don’t have the intellect to keep up with me.”

“I just know you so well,” Kamasaki replies, as if on reflex. Futakuchi blinks at him; Kamasaki appears taken aback at his own words. “I mean…”

“What _do_ you mean? Why do I feel as if I know you, if it’s not magic?” And it’s mutual, that much is clear. Kamasaki is _far_ more comfortable with that than Futakuchi ever could be.

“I dunno,” Kamasaki admits. “But is it that bad? Likin’ someone, and knowing they like you back, and fallin’ into something together?”

“That sounds like sappy shit like love at first sight,” Futakuchi says, then, horrified, quickly asks, “It’s _not_ that, right? It’s not a love spell?”

“First soulmates, now you’re sayin’ you _love_ me?” Kamasaki says with another stupidly attractive snicker.

Futakuchi may not be winning as much as he’s used to, but at least Kamasaki’s laugh is nice. He has a feeling Mai’s fruity choice of drink is backfiring on him. He downs the rest of it, so it cannot further betray him. “You know what I meant,” he replies as primly as he can manage.

The bar is beginning to fill now, noisy from both the crowd and louder music, and Futakuchi finds himself leaning further and further across their little table. Kamasaki answers what he can, but half the time one of them is laughing, and the other half, they’re teasing. Futakuchi doesn’t even know what kind of information he wants anymore.

He’s mildly dismayed to find that he _likes_ spending time with Kamasaki.

Despite his mistrust of magic and things like soulmates and love at first sight, and any notion that another person _completes_ someone, they fit in a way Futakuchi finds natural. Kamasaki keeps up with him, and doesn’t take true offense to any of the shit Futakuchi spouts. He appears, for all intents and purposes, _genuinely_ enamored with Futakuchi.

It boggles the mind.

Futakuchi must be addled by such a pure and sincere attraction, because he finds himself asking Kamasaki to come home with him.

 

—

 

Kamasaki walks into his apartment like he’s scared of the place. Futakuchi does not understand where this sudden apprehension comes from; he does not take advantage, because he’s plagued by what-ifs revolving second guessing and regrets.

But the first thing Kamasaki asks is, “Where’s your roommate?”

“He’s never home,” Futakuchi scoffs.

“Must be nice to have the run of the place.”

Futakuchi does not admit he gets lonely, but he fears something shows in his face anyway, because Kamasaki’s expression softens until Futakuchi cannot stand to look at him. He turns from him and waves a hand dismissively toward the kitchen and living room. “It’s convenient, for times like this.”

“Are there a lot of times like _this_?”

“Want anything to drink?” Futakuchi irritably asks. He does not want Kamasaki thinking him some kind of flirt, but worse is the thought of Kamasaki thinking of him as some kind of lonely-ass hermit. Even if he’s both. More one than the other, lately, ever since those awful little black shadows have been catching at his heels.

“Okay, my fault for startin’ it all casual-like, but I thought we were here to fuck,” Kamasaki replies. “Or are you going to grill me on more magic shit? Er—not that I’m opposed to talkin’ more or anything!”

Futakuchi turns back to him, leaning against the kitchen counter, and finds his nerves soothed by the hilarity of Kamasaki flustering himself in the process of trying to backpedal.

“I mean, ya got all sultry and stuff for a bit, but now you seem kinda on edge again, and now _I’m_ on edge, and this is _really fuckin’ weird_. Ain’t it? It’s not just me, right?”

“It’s pretty weird,” Futakuchi allows.

“It’s _definitely_ weird,” Kamasaki miserably repeats. “You got no idea. But just… tell me what ya want. Right now, tonight, whenever. I’m happy to do whatever.”

Futakuchi cocks his head to the side. He allows himself a sly smirk. “Do I make you nervous, Kamasaki-senpai?”

Kamasaki stares at him as if he’s grown a second head. It’s not sexy. “You have _never_ called me senpai before.”

“I was trying to be flippant,” Futakuchi flatly replies.

“You’re _weird_.” Kamasaki breaks into a grin that Futakuchi does not trust. He advances like a predator, unfortunately with the right amount of confidence and bulk to back himself up. Futakuchi sucks in a breath and hopes he hadn’t heard that, but the way Kamasaki’s eyes crinkle, and the way his grin seems to get sharper, as he backs Futakuchi against the counter, Futakuchi thinks he might not be so subtle. “Ya got a thing for upperclassmen, now?”

“Absolutely not,” Futakuchi denies at once.

“Ya got a thing for _me_?” Kamasaki presses. He leans into Futakuchi’s space until he’s nearly bent backward over the counter. Futakuchi _likes_ it, and bites his tongue to prevent himself from saying so.

“Still deciding,” Futakuchi says instead. “Convince me.”

Then Kamasaki’s mouth is on his.

They kiss like reunited lovers, full of such desperation and devotion that Futakuchi’s mind balks even as his body falls into this. Kamasaki presses against him like he wants them to meld together, and he holds him with such fervor that it makes something deep within Futakuchi ache. Kamasaki has one arm around his waist, against the small of his back, and the other cradles Futakuchi’s jaw. Futakuchi’s own arms have wrapped around Kamasaki’s neck to keep him close—while every defensive instinct left in him is telling him to run from the ease of this connection.

When they pull apart, scant millimeters, for air, before Kamasaki can lick into his mouth again, Futakuchi pants against him, “Reincarnation?”

Kamasaki pulls away a bit farther, blinking focus back into his eyes. “Hah?”

“Are we reincarnated lovers?” Futakuchi asks with a suspicious squint.

Kamasaki kisses the pout right off his mouth. Futakuchi loathes that he can. “This is really cute, how you’re guessin’ so many things, y’know,” he tells him between pecks.

Futakuchi shoves him away with a hand on his face. Kamasaki licks his palm, and when Futakuchi does not draw away, takes his hand and drags his tongue up his long fingers.

“Why are you humoring me instead of telling me? Do you even know?” _Do you even care_? Futakuchi wishes to add, but his voice has gotten breathy enough.

“It’s cute,” Kamasaki replies around the pads of his fingers, “an’ I like it when you’re cute.”

“I’m _always_ cute.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

Futakuchi scrunches his nose, and pulls his hand away from Kamasaki. Teases don’t get to play with his hand. “The counter is digging into my back. Let’s take this to the bedroom.”

Kamasaki smiles, and Futakuchi thinks it’s rather puppyish. He could imagine him wagging his tail, but when he leans in to steal another filthy, open-mouthed kiss, those cute thoughts go out the window. Kamasaki grins and backs away with both hands up in a gesture of surrender. Futakuchi makes a show of wiping his mouth.

Kamasaki leads the way to his bedroom with minimal direction and unbuttons his shirt as he goes. Futakuchi follows, and as soon as Kamasaki is standing in his bedroom, looking around like he’s trying to memorize every detail, Futakuchi comes up behind him.

He molds himself to his back, arms wrapped loosely around his waist, resting his cheek against Kamasaki’s shoulder. “Are we bonded somehow?” he asks.

“Why are you so obsessed? Maybe you just _like_ me,” Kamasaki replies with poorly hidden amusement. He puts his hand over Futakuchi’s, splayed over Kamasaki’s stomach.

“Because this is too much for my poor heart,” Futakuchi sighs.

Kamasaki barks out a laugh. He takes Futakuchi’s hand and slides it up beneath his tank top; kneading the firm abdominals is a good enough distraction from Futakuchi’s faux dismay. Kamasaki tilts his head back, then turns to Futakuchi, and places a kiss against his hair.

Futakuchi bites his shoulder as a warning. Kamasaki starts, but Futakuchi doesn’t address it, and instead dips lower to begin unbuckling his belt.

“Hey,” Kamasaki murmurs, face still pressed to Futakuchi’s hair. “Hey, kiss me.”

“Sounds sappy.”

“Sounds like _foreplay_. Something normal humans do.”

“Are either of us normal humans?” Futakuchi asks archly, and when Kamasaki doesn’t respond, Futakuchi makes a triumphant noise. He makes another when he pulls Kamasaki’s belt free of its loops.

Kamasaki steps away from him and shrugs off his button-up. His tank top does wonders to show off his physique, and Futakuchi watches him appreciatively as he tugs it free of his pants and pops the button on them. He does not pull them down, however, but instead nods toward Futakuchi. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Take off some clothes or somethin’.”

Futakuchi makes sure that Kamasaki knows he’s rolling his eyes. He wants the world to know he’s rolling his eyes. But he pulls his sweater off, despite the way it fluffs up his hair with static, and lets it fall in a crumpled heap to the floor.

The lapse in his attention means Kamasaki gets the jump on him again. He crowds into Futakuchi’s space and kisses him, this time with more teeth and less tongue, generally how Futakuchi prefers it.

He again cups Futakuchi’s face, this time with both hands, but not with tenderness. He holds Futakuchi _still_ , like he’s worried he’ll escape the moment he goes for a breath.

Kamasaki uses his size to his advantage and backs Futakuchi into the bed. Futakuchi snarls when he bounces onto his back; this had been _his_ plan for Kamasaki. He hooks a leg around his hip, trying to flip them, but Kamasaki reads him on that, too, and keeps him pinned against the rumpled sheets. Futakuchi tries with his other leg, but he has no leverage, and Kamasaki has most of his weight on him.

Futakuchi’s body realizes how thoroughly he has been pinned before his brain does, and reacts accordingly. He makes a sound that is _definitely_ not annoyed enough when Kamasaki presses their hips flush.

“You like it when you’re not in charge,” Kamasaki breathes against his mouth, before trying to bite his lip again. Futakuchi at least wins that round and bites down on Kamasaki’s bottom lip hard enough to make him gasp. “You’re still a goddamned _brat_ , though.”

“You like it when there’s a fight,” Futakuchi retorts. It’s a guess, but a correct one, based on the way Kamasaki attacks his mouth again.

But the hasty, fierce mood does not last.

As soon as Futakuchi tries to wiggle his hips upward enough to try to point out to _someone_ that he wants his pants off and needs space to accomplish this, Kamasaki pulls him upright again, and they both end up with wild hair and heaving chests and mouths bitten red.

Kamasaki is _at least_ polite enough to help him pull off his pants, after shucking off his own. He strips off his tank top, too, and then his rather uninspired boxers.

Futakuchi squints at him, just because. So, he has Kamasaki naked in his bed. This is, objectively, what Futakuchi wants.

But this feeling of _right_ won’t leave him, even this far.

Futakuchi doesn’t know how to trust it.

“You should tell me what you like,” Kamasaki says, almost like an order.

Futakuchi arches an eyebrow. “Why?”

“You don’t want me guessin’ more, do ya? So tell me. Let’s see you put that mouthiness to work.”

Futakuchi does not admit _how much_ he is into this. He would rather bite off his own tongue. “I’m not sure a vanilla guy like you could handle it,” he simpers, with a coy hand placed to his mouth. Kamasaki swats it away with a sneer. “I’m not into _hitting_ , for starters.”

“You’re a sadist, not a masochist,” Kamasaki flatly replies.

But then, he reaches forward to take Futakuchi’s hand in his own. The tenderness is back, and Futakuchi wants to puke, probably. He ignores his thudding heart and increasingly warm face.

At least Kamasaki doesn’t do anything stupid like _kiss his fingers_ or something. He just studies his hand like he’s trying to pick out something to critique about it. Futakuchi, for some reason, does not draw it back.

“C’mere,” Kamasaki says, voice low but gentle, and Futakuchi shuffles forward before he can stop himself.

Kamasaki pushes at his shoulders until Futakuchi turns, his bare back to Kamasaki’s bare chest, and Futakuchi relaxes his weight against him just to be antagonistic. Kamasaki doesn’t seem to mind, however. He wraps his arms around Futakuchi’s waist and rests his cheek against his hair.

“Tell me what you like,” Kamasaki says again, fingertips tickling over Futakuchi’s hips and staying pointedly away from his cock, “since you don’t seem to think I know that.”

“You _shouldn’t_ ,” Futakuchi insists. He can feel Kamasaki’s erection against him; by all counts, the man shouldn’t be patient enough to continue this. “Alternate timelines?”

“ _What_ now?”

“Alternate timelines. You know me, but not _me_ ,” Futakuchi explains. His calm voice is at odds with how he squirms against Kamasaki’s teasing, tickling touches.

“That doesn’t sound very kinky,” Kamasaki replies and continues drawing little circles over his hips and waist.

“That’s not a _no_.”

“As far as I know, there’s only one timeline, and it’s the one you and I are both in,” he sighs. “And to take away any other avenues of escape ya think are good ideas—I’m not an alien, I’m not a mindreader, and we weren’t fated to be or anythin’.”

Futakuchi opens his mouth to point out that this does seem to imply that Kamasaki knows _something_ is up, might even know what it actually is that causes Futakuchi’s heart to betray him like this, but Kamasaki shuts him up by grabbing his dick.

He gives it one firm, swift stroke, making Futakuchi gasp and jolt, and then grips the base again like a _threat_.

“Kinks, if you’d kindly fuckin’ _please_. Since you think I don’t know nothin’ about you or what you like.”

“That’s a double negative,” Futakuchi replies as a last-ditch attempt at maintaining his pride.

Kamasaki sinks his teeth into Futakuchi’s neck and Futakuchi makes a horribly incriminating noise.

“You think you already know what I like? Joke’s on you—I _like_ this,” Futakuchi hisses. “You’re not punishing me.”

Kamasaki makes a noncommittal noise against the skin of his neck. He laves his tongue over the bite mark, then sucks, hard and vicious. Futakuchi squirms in his grasp and _wishes_ he’d move his goddamn hand. Kamasaki, of course, does not, and instead seems quite happy to bite and suck and lick his way across the side of Futakuchi’s neck.

“I… really like someone kissing my neck,” Futakuchi admits. His pride cannot survive. Kamasaki has figured out one weak point too many. He has been defeated.

Kamasaki rewards Futakuchi’s honesty with another firm stroke of his cock and another bite to his neck. Futakuchi moans aloud. “Keep going,” Kamasaki whispers against him, breath cool against the wet skin.

“You’re a _stupid_ amount of my kinks, you know that?”

“And that’s why you’re so _stupidly_ on guard, huh?”

“I don’t like being berated in bed,” Futakuchi says with less condescension than he’d normally prefer. “If I’m going to be submissive to someone, then they had better earn it. You, unfortunately, have.”

“ _This_ is you bein’ submissive? You’re a _brat_ ,” Kamasaki says with a chuckle.

“My tactics would change if you weren’t _so_ focused on making me— _aah_!” Futakuchi cuts off with a high moan, a result of Kamasaki dragging the nails of his free hand down Futakuchi’s chest, at the same time as a particular twist of his wrist for how he continues jacking Futakuchi.

“Yes, I am definitely focused on making you go _ah_ ,” Kamasaki wryly replies. To Futakuchi’s annoyance, he releases his cock, and brings his hand up in front of his face. “Spit.”

“Nightstand drawer behind you.”

“Did I stutter?”

Futakuchi spits into his hand.

“Good,” Kamasaki says, amused, and reaches back down to touch him. “Keep going, Kenji-kun. Don’t stop talkin’ _now_.”

His name sounds like fond sarcasm in Kamasaki’s mouth, and for an overwhelming moment, he almost asks him to drop the honorific. “Are you going to fuck me?”

“Why, you change your mind or something?”

“I need to tailor my dirty talk, don’t I?” Futakuchi weakly sasses. “Flatter your ego about how your _big, fat cock_ is going to split me open—”

“That’s not what you’re supposed to be doing,” Kamasaki warns. He pulls his hand away, again, and puts his free hand against Futakuchi’s spine, pushing them away from their contact. “Sit up for a moment.”

Futakuchi flops even harder against him.

“I’m leanin’ back to grab the lube! Take care of yourself for a whole second, you ass.”

Futakuchi obligingly shuffles away, sitting upright again, and lazily strokes himself. He thinks about turning to watch, but instead, he keeps talking. “I think I _like_ being taken care of,” he muses. The fact that he can’t see Kamasaki makes this kind of talk easier. “Not that I’ve had many chances to explore that. Usually people see me and go ‘goodness gracious, I want that man to take me apart piece by piece’, and I’m nothing if not a pleaser. Mind you, I like that too, but that doesn’t seem like your style.”

Kamasaki suddenly presses against his back again, warm and solid and too present to ignore any longer. He wraps a slick hand around Futakuchi’s, which only smears lube everywhere, but they manage to at least get a reasonable amount on his cock instead of the bedspread.

“I think _you_ want to be taken apart piece by piece, huh?” Kamasaki whispers in his ear, breath hot. Futakuchi shudders and sighs. He pulls his hand free, and lets Kamasaki touch him at his own pace. “My style is that, tonight. And I think you like that, too.”

“I’d like to explore more in the bedroom,” Futakuchi says with as much composure as he can manage. Read: not a whole hell of a lot anymore. “I thought—thought we were gonna fuck,” he adds.

“I wanna get you off like this first, if that pleases his majesty.”

“Why are you _teasing_ me,” Futakuchi whines. Goddamn _whines_ , because Kamasaki’s hand feels like a wonder with the right amount of pressure and lube. (Almost like if he knew how Futakuchi likes it.)

“Because you’re arguin’ instead of talking like I asked ya to,” Kamasaki replies with a tender kiss to the unmarked side of Futakuchi’s neck. He tightens his grip on Futakuchi’s cock, and Futakuchi cannot help the way his hips cant upward into his fist.

“I like this,” Futakuchi replies, sounding harassed and strung-out and near _tears_ though he’s certainly not. Yet. “I like that you—you’re not letting me get away with anything— _god_ , fuck you.”

“Are you close?” Kamasaki asks and his teeth graze Futakuchi’s skin.

Futakuchi nods, wildly, and nearly knocks heads with him. He isn’t so close he’s going to beg for it, and he has it in the back of his mind that Kamasaki will likely deny him his orgasm, anyway.

But Kamasaki does not slow his hand. He bites into the crook of Futakuchi’s neck, and Futakuchi gasps, “ _Fuck_!”

Kamasaki wraps an arm around his waist so he can’t thrust into his hand, and continues to stroke him off, and Futakuchi cannot help the string of curses now pouring from his mouth. He turns his head so he exposes more of his throat to Kamasaki. Kamasaki takes advantage.

Futakuchi comes when he bites down hard enough to break the skin.

Kamasaki strokes him through it, and Futakuchi’s head lolls away from him as Kamasaki laps against the stinging mark he’d just left. It feels like all of the energy has left his body, pulled out from the force of his orgasm.

But Futakuchi hasn’t come down from his high yet when Kamasaki flips them and pushes him down onto the bedspread. Their mouths crash together; Futakuchi has just enough presence of mind to part his lips and try to avoid their teeth catching.

But as Futakuchi relishes in the feeling of Kamasaki’s weight pressing him to the bed, he belatedly realizes that this kiss is not the furious, frustrated ones of before. Their mouths meet sweetly, a tender, _affectionate_ press of lips and teasing little licks. It’s the kind of kiss you find in the emotional reunion scenes in tearjerker movies.

Futakuchi’s eyes flutter open, and he squints at Kamasaki as his higher cognitive processes come back to him.

Kamasaki’s eyes are shut tight, but he reopens them when they break apart for air. His eyes are just as hazy as if he were the one to just climax, but Futakuchi is willfully ignorant when it comes to what kind of emotion they hold.

There are no sappy words. “You’re good for a round two, right?” Kamasaki says with a grin, and without waiting, he situates himself between Futakuchi’s spread legs.

Futakuchi doesn’t trust his mouth right now. He rarely does, but _least_ of all after coming, and not when his body still feels too-light and his heart too-suspicious. So instead, he fumbles around on the bedspread until he finds the little bottle of lube. He fumbles it into Kamasaki’s waiting hand instead of attempting to throw it at him.

“Ready to be taken apart?” Kamasaki teases with a cruel leer that Futakuchi is _obscenely_ into. He’s into all of this.

He pinches his mouth shut, turns his head to the side, and lifts his hips up toward Kamasaki in answer enough. His voice is probably still shaky. That’s probably why he doesn’t want to say anything to him.

“Quiet, now?” Kamasaki presses.

Futakuchi nods.

“Well, I like your voice, so I’m gonna have ta hear it now. Yes or no, Kenji-kun?”

“Not in bed,” Futakuchi growls to the best of his abilities.

Kamasaki leans back on his heels, given pause, but Futakuchi nudges him forward with his calf.

“Don’t dress this up with your cute little honorifics,” Futakuchi bites out.

“Ah,” Kamasaki says with a blink.

He puts his clean(er) hand on Futakuchi’s thigh to stop his squirming, and he brushes a wet finger against his ass. Futakuchi whines and tosses his head again. “No teasing, not _now_.”

“Anything you want, Kenji,” Kamasaki answers and presses in the first finger.

Futakuchi hadn’t meant use his _given name_ , and the shock of the intimacy is almost as much as the quick and insistent pressure his body is not used to. Kamasaki’s other hand inches higher, to lightly cup his cock, and Futakuchi jerks against that touch almost as much as the finger inside him.

Futakuchi can’t recall how long it’s been since he’s had someone other than himself and his practical collection of toys, but Kamasaki plays him like a damn fiddle, and Futakuchi takes another finger like he were _made_ for this.

Kamasaki does not add a third finger until Futakuchi’s hips are riding down on his hand and his cock has swelled to hardness once more. Futakuchi’s breathing is ragged, caught up with hiccuping pants and incriminating whines, but he cares less and less. Soon, Kamasaki releases his length entirely and instead grabs Futakuchi’s hip, pinning him to the bed with his weight.

Then he curls his fingers up toward his prostate and he is _merciless_.

Futakuchi bites back his voice and his heels slide against the sheets. Kamasaki’s weight is easily enough to keep him fairly pinned, despite how he pushes, and he fucking _loves_ it. He loves it almost as much as the dizzying rush of pleasure each stroke inside him creates.

Kamasaki doesn’t let up. Futakuchi can’t hold back his voice, but sounds slowly turn into more and more insistent noises which slowly begin to resemble words. Words like _begging_.

Futakuchi is hardly conscious of it. “Ffffuu— _fuck_ , you need to— _fuck_ , please! Ahh—! _Please_ , Kamasaki!”

When he has turned into nothing but a keening mess of _pleasepleaseplease_ and there are goddamn tears stinging his eyes, Kamasaki withdraws his fingers.

Futakuchi gulps down air and hardly notices when Kamasaki leans away from him to retrieve a condom.

“Fuck you,” Futakuchi pants as soon as he feels the head of Kamasaki’s cock against him.

“You good?” Kamasaki asks like he knows the answer already.

But he still waits for the answer.

Futakuchi tugs him down for a kiss that is largely an excuse to bite at him. Kamasaki, of course, meets him eagerly. “Get _on_ with it. I’ve met my begging quota, so I won’t ask nicely anymore,” Futakuchi tells him, words right against his mouth, and he feels Kamasaki’s sharp grin against him. Futakuchi bites down on his lip until he tastes blood.

Kamasaki doesn’t tease him further. He hardly waits for Futakuchi to adjust, somehow knowing the exact moment to thrust forward and when to pause, but soon, he’s set up a punishing pace. Futakuchi kind of regrets not blowing him earlier; his cock feels _amazing_ , and Futakuchi needs as much of him as is bodily possible.

Their mouths meet again, a clash of teeth and lips that can hardly be called a kiss at all. Futakuchi doesn’t have much thought to put into kissing Kamasaki back, but Kamasaki doesn’t seem to mind.

The kiss ends sweetly, tender and breathless.

Reduced to mostly incoherent attempts at variations of _fuck_ , Futakuchi nearly shouts when Kamasaki reaches between them to grab at Futakuchi’s cock. It’s too much—it’s so fucking much, but Futakuchi _wants_ this. He wants this in a way he hasn’t wanted something in a long time. He wants Kamasaki to wreck him and show him that he can take him apart.

Who knows what Kamasaki would do with the pieces afterward, but Futakuchi doesn’t care.

Kamasaki growls a stream of praise and encouragement right into Futakuchi’s ear, between distracted attempts at kissing at his neck. Futakuchi can only catch parts of it, as distracted as he is. Heat and tension coil tight in his belly.

Futakuchi hikes his legs up higher, crossed behind Kamasaki. Kamasaki takes it as a cue to release his dick long enough to grab one thigh and push it up toward his stomach. Futakuchi allows his legs to splay wider, bending easily beneath Kamasaki’s grip, and the new angle has him seeing stars instantly.

Kamasaki can’t press quite as close to his chest, or bury his face in his neck, but Futakuchi blinks blearily up at him when he finds them nose to nose.

Kamasaki stares at him like he’s something precious.

Futakuchi closes his eyes, both to avoid his gaze, and for the feeling of it all.

Kamasaki comes first between them with a few last, forceful snaps of his hips. He gasps out something near the corner of Futakuchi’s mouth, and Futakuchi obliges him with a kiss as soon as Kamasaki begins stroking him to completion. He’s _so close_.

When Kamasaki sinks his teeth back into the side of his neck, Futakuchi comes for a second time with his voice breaking on a moan.

As he comes back to himself, catching his breath and trying to blink the room back into focus, Kamasaki carefully pulls out and sets Futakuchi’s legs back down onto the mattress. Futakuchi cooperates like a rag doll. His entire body thrums, and his neck particularly throbs. His hips hurt in that dreamy sort of post-orgasmic bliss way.

Futakuchi half expects Kamasaki to do something like throw a washcloth at him or make some remark about hogging the bed—Futakuchi is unabashed in this—but when he becomes aware of Kamasaki’s presence at his side again, he’s awkwardly but endearingly trying to wipe down Futakuchi. And the bedspread.

Futakuchi didn’t _want_ to remember the mess. Laundry can wait, though. He’s sweaty and over-warm, and it’s not like he needs the blanket with a huge heater in his bed, either.

“Leave it,” Futakuchi says, rolling onto his side. He flops an arm at Kamasaki’s face, but only catches his shoulder. “C’mon, it’s like…” He doesn’t want to look at the clock, actually.

“Bedtime?” Kamasaki asks with a quiet kind of grin. Affectionate. _Tender_.

He doesn’t ask if he can spend the night, and Futakuchi doesn’t formally invite him. He just scoots over onto a reasonable amount of bed, offers his back, and Kamasaki curls up behind him with an arm thrown over his waist.

Futakuchi is exhausted, and there’s no mess he doesn’t already have to deal with later, so he can fall asleep guilt-free. He _wants_ to. Kamasaki spooning him is nice. Stupidly nice.

Kamasaki kisses the back of his neck. Futakuchi doesn’t stir.

He must think Futakuchi is asleep, and Futakuchi is more than halfway asleep, but he’s still aware enough to catch the murmured, “Love you,” against his neck.

 

—

 

“Hey, captain,” Kamasaki teases with a smile that could probably make flowers grow. He pokes at Futakuchi’s cheek, just to be a shithead.

“I wasn’t ever _your_ captain. Stop calling me that,” Futakuchi says and swats at him.

“Yeah, but ya turn such a _cu-ute_ shade of pink when I say it!”

“Are you here for a reason, or do you just have to meet your harassment quota?” Oikawa asked with a falsely bright-eyed, innocent look.

“Can’t a guy multitask?” Kamasaki asks, and folds his arms over Futakuchi’s shoulder, unrepentantly leaning all his weight on him. Futakuchi bends beneath him with an aggravated sound.

“Do you have that many braincells?” Futakuchi and Oikawa ask in unison.

“Ya know, sometimes, I almost feel bad for the monsters, having to deal with _two_ of you,” Kamasaki replies. “You two are proof that higher powers exist, and that they’re cruel.”

“You’re going to sound like Iwa-chan soon,” Oikawa hums. He turns back to his book, and at least pretends to study, to give them a guise of privacy.

Futakuchi, through a great feat of strength, sits back up and shrugs Kamasaki off him. “Did you actually need something? I thought you had class soon.” He’s _not_ happy Kamasaki stopped by and broke up the torture of prep dates with Oikawa. He swears he’s not.

He is.

“Got canceled, teach is sick. Thought I’d swing by and take ya out for dinner, since it’s been awhile since we had something that was a _normal_ date.”

Futakuchi thinks back. Their last date had been canceled due to an appearance by a bigger shadow, and the time before that, their attempted movie date got overrun with the little monster fucks. The time before that, Kamasaki had been sick, and before that…

Maybe it’d been awhile since they’ve been out like a normal couple.

Futakuchi tilts his head back, but Kamasaki preempts his answer by stealing a crooked kiss. Futakuchi colors further. Kamasaki’s grin is now a little less sunshine and a little more shark. Futakuchi probably loves him for it, if he were a mere man capable of such feelings.

“C’mon, it wouldn’t hurt ya to get away from all the doom and gloom for a few hours. Not even Oikawa’s complainin’ about _that_ one,” Kamasaki points out.

Futakuchi opens his mouth to reply, but it never comes.

 

—

 

Futakuchi wakes, already drenched in a freezing sweat, heart hammering in his ears. For a long moment, he has to remember where he is. Bedroom, of course. That’s where people slept. He had been… sleeping. Dreaming.

Futakuchi gradually relaxes back into the pillows.

His bed is empty, other side cold.

Futakuchi stares at the empty spot until he can fall back asleep.

He doesn’t even remember what the stupid nightmare had been about. Probably depression monsters again. He didn’t need _Kamasaki_ of all people to try to reassure him back into safe sleep.

 

—

 

Sawamura collapses, the metal of his naginata screeching across the concrete. “ _Shit_ , no!” Kamasaki tears over to him, boots nearly getting stuck in the half-melted asphalt.

The fire flickers between them and the monster, but it’s guttering out. By the time Kamasaki reaches Sawamura, he’s unconscious, and he isn’t even _shivering_. He’s frigid to the touch and his breath comes in stuttering, shallow bursts.

“No, _no_ ,” Kamasaki repeats, pulling Sawamura up, into his arms. He knows all the stages of this. He knows to resist his own instinct of trying to rub heat into him; they need to get him into a warm bath and a shitton of blankets and _away_ from the fucking shadow. “C’mon, _come on_ , you can’t go down like this. Get up—!”

The fire gutters out, but Sawamura’s eyes flutter open. His gaze is unfocused and his lips are blue, but Kamasaki will take it.

So he thinks, until he hears Akaashi’s shout.

They purposefully didn’t tell anyone else about this tonight; Kamasaki can’t just leave Sawamura with either Sugawara or Bokuto. He hesitates, Sawamura’s freezing form in his arms, for a vital moment.

The staticky monster has gotten tripped up in the same goopy asphalt Kamasaki had nearly slipped on earlier, but it has already fallen onto Akaashi’s legs, pinning him. It claws into him, pulling itself up, drawing seeping lines of blood with every inch gained. Akaashi can’t reach to hit it away. He doesn’t have the strength left to throw it off.

Akaashi doesn’t have magic of his own, so he’s always suffered with close combat. Kamasaki usually covers him, and he hates himself for his lapse in it now. Despite Sawamura’s frigid skin, he lays him back down, and dashes toward Akaashi and the monster.

The damned thing is smarter than the little blobby ones.

When Kamasaki lowers his shoulder, intending on ramming it off and away from Akaashi, it braces itself. At the last moment, it thrusts its clawed fingers up into his chest.

The force of it still sends them sprawling, Kamasaki on top, breath knocked out of him. The monster doesn’t have to breathe. As he wheezes and coughs, half-breaths coming up progressively wetter, it uses his own weight to keep slashing. It doesn’t even _try_ to escape.

Kamasaki fights his way off of it, dodging snapping jaws and ripping claws, and staggers to his feet. He’s bleeding in more places than he can count, but most of it is comparatively superficial. He’s survived worse. But the monochrome monster before him is faster, pain not even beginning to slow it, despite the too-dark blood it drips.

It lunges at him, mouth open too wide, and Kamasaki reels back. He ends up tripping over Akaashi.

And the monster falls upon Akaashi instead.

Akaashi catches it across the face with a haymaker, easily slamming its head down onto the concrete, but it still doesn’t slow. Akaashi grabs it by its hair and strains to keep its face down—its mouth _away_ from him.

Kamasaki struggles back to his feet, and uses precious time to pull out an arrow. Its light illuminates the gleaming mess of Akaashi’s chest—and Kamasaki realizes how far he’s gone.

 _We need a healer_ , he realizes, far, _far_ too late.

The monster snaps Akaashi’s arm with an audible _crack_ and Kamasaki barely gets his boot between its teeth in time. He can feel it cutting through thick rubber and leather, and it tears at him like a rabid dog would, nearly pulling him off balance entirely. He doesn’t understand how these goddamned things can be so fucking _strong_ , even before stealing someone’s magic.

Kamasaki throws his weight forward, hoping to land on its head, but it again anticipates his movement. It yanks him off balance, and tosses him like a ragdoll.

This time, by the time he gets up, foot bloody and ankle refusing to support his weight, the monster has descended upon Akaashi again, despite his desperate fighting. It’s _eating_ him.

“Kama—” Akaashi cuts off with a wet _squelch_ , but he’s jammed his elbow into the thing’s mouth. It chews through muscle and bone, but it buys seconds. “Kamasaki,” Akaashi begs.

He catches Kamasaki’s eye.

They’ve discussed this before. Akaashi has always known what and who Kamasaki was, after all, and they have an agreement.

It is with agony in his heart that Kamasaki notches one last arrow.

He makes it painless.

The monster slumps as soon as Akaashi lays still, and its body begins rotting into a meaty, black pulp, spreading its mass over Akaashi as if trying to claim his body even in death.

With no one left from before, with the area quiet and with his own demons pushed back, Kamasaki throws his head back and howls his heartbreak.

 

—

 

“I mean, that’s fine. It was only one night together. The date was _okay_. The sex was just mindblowing,” Futakuchi says, glaring at anyone who dares come within two meters of him. It’s late enough that it’s getting dark, so most people are out of class and out for dinner; there aren’t many available victims for his ire.

“Dude,” Terushima says on the other line. “You’ve got it _bad_.”

Futakuchi would throw his phone, but it wouldn’t improve anything. “He just. He didn’t even text me today! He ditched me—it wasn’t even the morning after? It was the middle of the _night_. Who the hell does that?!”

“Maybe he had to go feed his dog or something,” Terushima says. Futakuchi knows he’s trying to sound reasonable. Rational. Like an adult.

But Futakuchi doesn’t feel like an adult, and he doesn’t want to allow Terushima to be an adult in this, either. “What the shit kind of excuse is that?! _Feed_ his _dog_?” Futakuchi finds himself annoyed that he doesn’t even know if Kamasaki _has_ a dog or not. It hadn’t come up.

“I don’t know! People leave sometimes. I’m sorry it happened to you—that’s real shitty, man. You really liked this guy.”

“I _do not_!” Futakuchi snarls into the phone.

He hadn’t even told Terushima yet what he _thought_ he heard as he’d been falling asleep. It would probably make him sound crazy. He _already_ sounded crazy, and Futakuchi is really getting tired of that kind of life. He doesn’t want Terushima to act like Shirabu.

But then, Futakuchi _sees him_.

Kamasaki is across the street, turning the corner, ambling along like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

Futakuchi nearly breaks his phone.

“I have to go,” he tells Terushima.

“That’s your I’m Going To Do Something Stupid voice. Dude, _no_ —” Futakuchi hangs up on him. He’ll apologize later, and they can watch shitty movies and eat ice cream or something. He knows Terushima was halfway moping because Sawamura missed practice again, so they could bond over it.

But for now, Futakuchi has a few choice words for that man.

He jogs across the street. He doesn’t call out until he has Kamasaki in his sights again (the last thing he needs is to be shouting after strangers), and it takes him a moment to recognize his hair. The dying sunlight makes the colors look off, but he would recognize that back and that jacket anywhere. “Kamasaaaaaaki!” Futakuchi calls, saccharine and _loud_.

Kamasaki doesn’t turn around.

Futakuchi huffs to himself and jogs up behind him. He reaches out to grab him, to demand what the hell he thinks he’s doing—but someone grabs _him_ from behind, roughly.

Futakuchi is yanked backward with a ferocity that activates every fight or flight instinct he’s ever had, firmly in the _fight_ side.

He goes with his backward momentum, uses it to swing around, and ends up punching his assailant in the face.

His assailant, who is Kamasaki.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Kamasaki hisses, holding his jaw, and Futakuchi is too stunned to shake out his aching hand. He feels movement behind him, probably the evident-stranger wondering what the fuck is going on, but as Futakuchi turns to figure out who he’d almost accosted, Kamasaki scoops him up with an arm beneath his knees and one braced against his back.

With a flash of light nowhere near as showy as Oikawa or even Matsukawa, Kamasaki shifts into his magical gear, and he jumped away like he’s supposed to be Superman or something.

But not before Futakuchi sees the stranger.

It’s Kamasaki, too.

But washed out, too pale, with eyes that are pure black and too sharp. The creepy Kamasaki swings at them the moment they leave with _claws_.

They land lightly on a nearby dorm roof, four stories up. The chill night wind tugs at their clothes, twirling the ribbons Futakuchi can see behind Kamasaki, and pushing Futakuchi’s shaggy hair into his eyes. He doesn’t say anything. He processes what the last ten seconds had been.

One: Two Kamasakis.

Two: _Monster_ Kamasaki?

Three: Kamasaki is carrying him bridal style.

Four: Real(?) Kamasaki had saved him, and Futakuchi doesn’t even have a quip about his outfit. He doesn’t even care to see much of his outfit right now, given numbers One and Two of the list. Kind of number Three.

“You still got a hell of a swing, you know that?” Kamasaki mutters. He doesn’t move to set Futakuchi down. If anything, his hands tighten on him, pressing into bruises he’d left the night before.

Futakuchi opens and closes his mouth a few times.

“Don’t you _ever_ do that again,” Kamasaki continues. He screws his eyes shut, sucks in a deep breath, and releases it through gritted teeth. “God. Just. _Fuck_. That thing would’ve taken your head off. Don’t you _ever_ fucking go near any of those ever again, you hear me?!”

“That looked like you,” Futakuchi dumbly replies. He can’t bear to look at Kamasaki’s raw expression, so he instead studies the collar of his uniform. It’s sleeveless. Of course. Low-cut, too, revealing, for lack of a better term, plenty of cleavage. With the sunset, Futakuchi can’t quite tell any color, but it’s darker, and the border of his top seems to match the fingerless gloves on the hands digging into Futakuchi’s legs and arm.

Kamasaki sighs through his nose. Then, he presses his face against Futakuchi’s hair, and his second sigh is shakier.

“They look like us because we created them,” Kamasaki tells him. Futakuchi hates the emotion in his voice. He hates that he still doesn’t let him down, and he hates that he can’t bring himself to ask when Kamasaki seems so _vulnerable_. “Those things—those shadows, they’re _ours_. They look like people because they’re born when a new knight is created. And then, they spend the rest of their lives trying to kill us and eat our magic.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: Despite vowing to prevent further tragedy, it seems not even magical knights can do everything. 
> 
> (( oikawa's outfit is based roughly on [sayaka from pmmm](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/kingdomhearts3dddd/images/c/ce/Puella_magi_madoka_magica_sayaka_miki_3_render_by_anouet-d5sk4p6.png/revision/latest?cb=20140311162023), and matsukawa's outfit is based roughly on [ryoji from persona 3](http://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-05/art/p3-ryoji-mochizuki.jpg). their colors are red and purple, respectively. ))


	3. all that blood was never once beautiful, it was just red

“How are you feeling?” Sugawara murmurs against his shoulder. The water is still hot around them, steam filling their tiny bathroom, bodies filling their tiny shower. Yesterday had been bath day; with Sawamura able to stand under his own power again, it’s back to showers.

“Please stop fretting over me,” he sighs. He reaches back blindly until he grabs Sugawara’s hip, and he pulls them flush, reveling in more skin contact.

He still feels so damn cold.

He won’t let his boyfriend know that.

“I haven’t seen you that bad in years.”

“It hasn’t _been_ that bad in years,” Sawamura admits. He didn’t lose anything to frostbite, though he’s not certain what happens really counts as frostbite. It just… gets cold. “I have to go back to class tomorrow. I have to check on Bokuto.”

“He still hasn’t answered his phone,” Sugawara sadly agrees. “Kuroo’s with him, but I’m worried, Daichi.”

“I am, too.”

Akaashi’s death left them in a bind. He’d been the only one who could negate magic, a useful skill when it came to dodging flames in the midst of battle. He had possessed a calm and sharp mind. He had been their Plan B in case one of those monsters had stolen their rings.

“We can’t let this happen again.” Truth be told, he’s pretty worried about Kamasaki, too, having to do what he did. Kamasaki has always been kind of cagey around the big shadows, but he’d seemed calmer around Akaashi. Sawamura had always chalked it up to some side-effect of his magic, or perhaps lack thereof.

He doesn’t know how Oikawa is taking this, or how he found out, if anyone even told him yet. They’ve gotten along as acquaintances outside of the realm of the supernatural, but they’d never meshed well as any sort of team—but now, one man down, he wonders. He _worries_. Akaashi’s monster had been the first to get close, but they’ve spotted others from time to time.

_We can’t let this happen again_ , he thinks, hand tightening on Sugawara’s.

 

—

 

“They’re fucking _people_ ,” Futakuchi snarls.

“Mattsun,” Oikawa says, exhausted, his long fingers massaging his temples, “do we have another group project I’ve forgotten about?”

To his credit, he doesn’t sound sarcastic; he sounds like a man facing a firing squad might, like he could have genuinely forgotten about something so important to his grade. But it does nothing to dissuade Futakuchi’s anger.

Matsukawa thinks, for a long moment, looking just as exhausted and slightly fearful.

“You _don’t_ ,” Iwaizumi flatly chimes in. “I’m sure Futakuchi-kun is causing a scene here for reasons unrelated.”

“It’s all _you_ ,” Futakuchi snaps.

“What is?” Oikawa asks.

“ _You_ are the ones making the monsters. The—The big ones, the _people_ ones—the little ones too?! Am I getting swarmed by them because I had to hang out with you two for so long?” _Because I’ve seen Kamasaki?_ he wants to add, but he’s scared to.

“You saw the big ones?” Matsukawa asks, suddenly more alert. “Whose? Are you alright?”

Futakuchi falters in face of his concern. “I’m fine. I… got away.”

“Whose is close? How do you know it was—” Iwaizumi stops himself from incriminating them further, sighs, and gestures impatiently until Futakuchi sits down at their table. Futakuchi plops with an angry huff. Lowering his voice, Iwaizumi asks, “How do you know knights made any of this? Why would they make _monsters_?”

“No one’s doing anything evil on purpose. We’re champions of goodness and justice, or whatever,” Oikawa wearily tells him. He sets his cheek on his hand, and turns toward Futakuchi, but his eyes are closed behind his glasses. “Those things hunt _us_. We keep them out of the city as best we can, and we kill the little things.”

“Then just stop _making them_!” Futakuchi hisses.

“Mattsun, give me my psych book so I can educate darling Ken-chan,” Oikawa says and Matsukawa roots around in his backpack for him. To Futakuchi’s surprise, he does not get a textbook lobbed at his head. Oikawa, with squinted eyes, slides across an old _Intro to Psychology_ book. “Chapter twelve. Read up on some Jung before coming in here and screaming at us while I have a migraine.”

“Why didn’t you tell me they looked like actual people?” Futakuchi asks, still angry, but he takes the book. “I could have… I mean, someone could approach them.”

“Most people can’t see them. I’m sorry, we should have told you, but we didn’t want to freak you out anymore than you already were,” Iwaizumi apologizes. Futakuchi just stares at him. He’s _still_ freaked out. None of this had been good, but at least he might have avoided _another_ near-death experience if he’d gotten a decent warning.

“For the record, we don’t make the little ones. Everyone else does that,” Matsukawa adds. “And you’re only getting swarmed because you’re kind of a mess. Go to student health already, okay? Get some help.”

Futakuchi stows the borrowed textbook and leaves with as much dignity as he can muster. Two of the fuzzy little black blobs trail after him, and no one offers to help him with them. Fuckers.

 

—

 

Sawamura has the best magical skills for both offensive and defensive capabilities. Or rather, he’d developed his skills like that himself. Fire magic drains his own body heat as a starter, but he knows how to gauge that, too, and he knows how to avoid overuse.

The shadow monsters may be damn near invincible, and impervious to most kinds of pain, but fire still keeps them from charging blindly ahead.

Sugawara sits on a fire escape next to the parking lot Daichi has already cordoned off. They’re in a part of the city where no one will look twice if they hear a fight. It’s late enough that no one should be awake to see any of the fire, but they might not call about that, either.

The monsters usually go for the knight that spawned them, to get to their ring, but others have drawn them in the past; Bokuto had drawn Akaashi’s, and Sugawara has drawn Sawamura’s. No one questions the attachment. With both of them in one spot, and with Sugawara safely out of reach (plus with both a baseball bat and a shovel, and, just in case, a blanket next to him), it’s only a matter of time before Sawamura faces himself.

He’s going to find out, finally, how much it takes to kill these things. It’s just a matter of trial and error. He will _not_ let anyone else die for this.

There is nothing sneaky or unpredictable about the monster’s movements. It comes forward, in a straight line, and only a jet of fire will beat it back. It tries to dodge his slash, but the tip of his blade catches its stomach, and it bleeds an ugly, lifeless black.

They’ve injured them before. The issue is that it doesn’t slow them. (The issue is that Sawamura must fight his mirror image, bloody and beaten and broken, and keep himself from despairing at the sight of it.) He just needs to keep it out of immediate range but not let it get too far, so he can corner it and hack away.

His naginata’s blade glows white-hot, and at least then the monster stops bleeding so much. It opens its mouth on a mute shriek every time he slices into it, but it just scrabbles uselessly at the hot metal each time it cuts into it.

He thinks he’s making headway when he manages to cleave off an arm.

_They_ can _be hurt_ , he thinks, triumphant, when it does not immediately do anything like heal or try to shove it back on. Stranger things have happened in his life.

Sawamura aims for the legs next, targeting the side missing an arm. The monster does not have the reflexes to dodge him, and he gets a lucky swipe in alongside its knee. Sugawara whoops from the sidelines, still safe. He knows by now not to interfere in the battles.

With the monster hobbled, he takes advantage of his superior mobility, and he feels a thrill of excitement for the first time. This hadn’t just been a suicidal idea. This _can_ be done, and they can prevent further tragedy.

His pride gets the better of him.

When Sawamura gets too close, it catches him around the ankle, and he goes sprawling. He rolls out of the way of its first strike, scrambling for his weapon, but it throws its entire body after him. Sawamura hits it squarely in the face with a jet of fire from his hand.

He keeps it up until he can begin to feel the coldness seeping in. He shivers violently beneath the feeling, but its head is a melted, smoking mess just above him. Teeth and muscle are exposed, glistening black instead of healthy red, and Sawamura scrambles away before it gets any bright ideas about _still_ coming after him. At least now it doesn’t look so much like him, and it smells like burnt sugar instead of burnt flesh.

The thing twitches back into life, but it’s grounded, half-melted, and missing limbs.

It pulls itself with its remaining arm toward Sawamura. He steps out of its range, and pins its hand to the hot asphalt with the end of his naginata. It kicks with mangled legs and snarls soundlessly at him.

It struggles to kick its weight upward, trying to rebalance itself even with its hand pinned, and Sawamura won’t allow that. Despite his shivering, he blasts its legs with fire, until he sees flesh melt from _bone_ and they stop moving. The smell is going to make him sick at this rate, but it’s a far sight better than the alternative.

Truthfully, it’s creepier that it can’t cry or scream. Makes fighting it simpler, and easier to keep secret, but all Sawamura has heard is the crackling of his own fire, and the sound of his own heaving breaths. It makes him feel isolated, cocooned from everything except the monster before him. It’s been a long time since he’s worked solo, too, and while he’s fighting with the very real grief that he’ll never hear Akaashi’s shouts again, he doesn’t have Kamasaki here with him now, either. Both had been vocal in fights.

Both had been targets he’d had to avoid.

He glances around at all of the fire now. It lays in haphazard lines around the parking lot, still burning until he wills it out. The only direction he’d ever avoided is the concrete wall with the fire escape, where Sugawara sits, kicking his feet. He gives Sawamura a reassuring smile when he catches him looking.

The mangled, half-melted body in front of him disgusts him. It’s still moving, with strength it should not, considering how much of itself is missing. He wonders at what point it’ll finally just _stop_.

_If_ it ever will.

“You’re not going to fall unconscious, are you?” Sawamura asks in a voice hoarse with smoke. He rubs at his arms and flexes his fingers, willing himself to fight for just a little while longer. He’s won this. Some shivering is nothing. (If he’s still shivering, he’s _fine_ , he tells himself.) “It wouldn’t hurt anymore if you passed out. I don’t know how clean I can make this.”

He doesn’t know if these things have minds. They’re more intelligent than the little ones, certainly, but they can’t speak or respond, and Sawamura isn’t certain how much is recognition, and how much is instinct when it comes to their targeting habits.

It’s obvious why they target the knights—they’re after their rings, the source of their magic. They eat them, they earn the magic, they earn a voice and thoughts and a self.

Akaashi had once theorized that the only other people they target would be the people that the knights wished to protect.

Sawamura had laughed and told him that that said more about _Akaashi_ than anyone else. Sugawara hadn’t been his.

Sawamura supposes that they’re drawn to people that the knights themselves have bonds with. It’s not about magic. It’s about trying to be a _person_ , and that means bonds with others. They want to eat up the sense of self.

Sugawara always agreed with him. Akaashi had called him sentimental.

“Stop struggling. Just pass out,” Sawamura hisses and sets his boot on its skull. It tries to grab him again, but he keeps its hand pinned. “Just… go quietly, would you?”

He doesn’t want to think about what these things _want_ , since what they want has always gone hand in hand with violence and death. But he doesn’t want to think about killing anything that has only ever _wanted_. He doesn’t have the luxury to be sentimental now, however.

The shadows lost any chance of mercy when Akaashi died.

It takes a long time to destroy its head without magic. It struggles and claws at him the _entire time_. It even rips its hand free, drawing bloody furrows down Sawamura’s leg, but it can’t really hurt him anymore.

It doesn’t have death throes, and neither does it make a sound, even through the very end. His boot connects with the hardness of the asphalt beneath the pulpy mess of its head, and it finally stops moving. Its body begins to decay into blackness.

He feels ill.

That had been him, in some sense. _Could_ have been him.

Sawamura glances toward Sugawara, for reassurance, that they’re both fine and this worked and that it doesn’t matter that he just killed something with his own face on it. Sugawara smiles back at him, wide grin catching the firelight below, and he shoots him a thumbs-up.

Sawamura smiles back, then collapses.

 

—

 

Sugawara sits up when he sees his boyfriend fall. The fire round the lot gutters and flickers like so many dying candles.

He grabs the blanket and slides off the fire escape, landing heavily below. “Daichi?” he calls, worry blooming within him.

He races over, and fear squeezes his chest like a vise. He somehow knows the answer even before he reaches his side and finds him not breathing. The fires are still dying out around him; they’re so many smoking embers now. Sugawara’s breath catches, and it has nothing to do with the smoke hanging in the air.

“ _Daichi_!”

 

—

 

“This is filthy,” Futakuchi groans.

Kamasaki grins above him, sharp as a knife, and even _more_ slowly, sinks down over him again. Futakuchi’s hips strain upward. The handcuffs _clack_ against the headboard when he pulls on reflex. “But ya _liiiiike_ it, huh?”

Futakuchi likes arguing. He fucking loves it, but he has no bite left in him right now. Not with how sweetly Kamasaki rides him, taking him like a champ. Like he was made to. Futakuchi isn’t certain why he agreed to get tied to the headboard, because he can’t fight back like this, and Kamasaki chooses the pace and the position and the _everything_. Futakuchi wants his power back.

But he likes trusting Kamasaki with it more.

Futakuchi’s stomach jumps as Kamasaki rakes his nails down the taut muscle. He pauses to flick at the barbell in Futakuchi’s belly button, and Futakuchi huffs out a startled laugh, squirming beneath him. “Stop that,” he breathlessly orders, which of course prompts Kamasaki to do it again. “St—you _ass_! Stop! Not during sex, you—you _weirdo_ —!”

Kamasaki grins like an evil mastermind and ghosts his hands down Futakuchi’s sides, getting him squirming in a totally different way. Nevermind the fact that his dick is still up Kamasaki’s ass. Futakuchi laughs and swears and snaps up at him, but he’s at Kamasaki’s mercy. A terrible place to be.

His heel manages to catch on the bedspread—sheets and cover _long_ since kicked off in the wrestling match they generally call foreplay—and he nearly upends Kamasaki entirely. His hands spread on Futakuchi’s chest, catching himself at the last moment, and Futakuchi plants his feet beneath him. They glare at one another.

“Don’t buck me off like some kinda bull,” Kamasaki growls.

“No tickling, weirdo.”

“Half the time you like it if I play with your piercing. _Weirdo_.”

“Kamasaki, I swear to god, if you don’t get back to—oh, _ffffuck_.” Kamasaki _timed_ it for when Futakuchi had been trying to talk, Futakuchi just _knows_ it.

Kamasaki balances his weight further forward, changing the angle entirely, and Futakuchi meets him with upward thrusts. It feels goddamned amazing. _This_ is why he puts up with Kamasaki, probably. The sex is fantastic.

Kamasaki leans down to bite at Futakuchi’s bottom lip, and Futakuchi opens his mouth, halfway on a moan, mostly in invitation. Their teeth nearly clash in their haste. Futakuchi never minds it, considering all the other ways they’ve smacked each other around in the past. He likes it when Kamasaki doesn’t hold back with him. It took them years to get to this stage, where the kid gloves are off but when they know where the lines lay, when they know just how hot it can be if they’re at each other’s throats before their mouths meet. Blood runs hotter when it’s been drawn first.

Futakuchi is close, panting into Kamasaki’s mouth, when he accidentally says it.

“God— _fuck_ , Kamasaki,” he grunts, “fucking hell, I love you so much—”

And Kamasaki freezes, quashing Futakuchi’s orgasm and yet again throwing off what rhythm Futakuchi had been _enjoying_ , damn it.

Futakuchi’s mouth has always worked faster than his brain, especially when it came to Kamasaki; he glares up at him for a full three seconds before he _realizes_.

Futakuchi’s face heats in a way totally unrelated to sex or the shared body heat.

Kamasaki squints down at him. “What’d you just say?”

Futakuchi wants to crawl under the bed to hide from him. Difficult, since he’s still handcuffed to the headboard and Kamasaki is sitting on his dick, but Futakuchi still likes to wish for the impossible. “I. I didn’t…”

“You runnin’ your mouth again?”

“I didn’t want to say it like _that_ ,” Futakuchi confesses, eyes averted, cheeks still too hot. “Fucking. Fuck.”

“Who the hell says _I love you_ the first time during _sex_? Do ya like it when I shove you down that badly?”

“You jackass, don’t tease me about this kind of thing! Think about the delicate state of my heart!”

Kamasaki is laughing when he leans down to kiss him. Futakuchi refuses to reciprocate at first, but as with most things, Kamasaki coaxes him into it. He gently begins rocking his hips again, reminding Futakuchi just how interested he still is in sex, even if his heart is about to leap out of his chest and escape into the dark night. Futakuchi squeezes his eyes shut and braces for the further emotional blows—that never come.

“Love you too, you dumb brat,” Kamasaki whispers in his ear, and kisses a tender line down his jaw.

Their steamy night turns into something sweet, and tender, and Futakuchi is _mortified_. The orgasm is good, and Kamasaki’s dirty talk game apparently increases tenfold when he’s high on sappy shit, but it takes Futakuchi twenty minutes to come out from beneath the pillow pile he crawls under as soon as he’s uncuffed.

Kamasaki always has to laugh before saying the L word after that, because he’s a bastard. An unfortunate bastard Futakuchi is kind of in love with.

 

—

 

Futakuchi awakes with a sour taste on his tongue and his heart thudding out of his chest. He barely gets to the bathroom in time before throwing up.

He doesn’t remember any of the dream, but he has a mess in his boxers and two of those fucking shadows try to crawl in bed with him when he stumbles back out. He tells himself he’s _not_ pathetic enough to cry himself back to sleep out of frustration, but it’s damn close.

 

—

 

“Sooooo,” Terushima begins in a voice that spells trouble.

Futakuchi walks a little faster. His legs are longer; he should be able to outpace him. But Terushima picks up the pace, too, nearly jogging beside him.

“Shirabu says you’re still kinda fucked up about some sort of nightmare you had? I mean—night terror? They’re different somehow?” Terushima cocks his head as he guesses his way through Shirabu’s shitty so-called _help_. He looks like a puppy. Futakuchi wants to punt him, but he settles for trying to stomp on the dog-sized shadow trying to chew on his ankles. “Dude, no need to kick me!” Terushima dances away from him with a wounded noise.

Futakuchi scrapes the shadow off his leg under the guise of shuffling for warmth when they stop at the corner, waiting for the light. There’s been a cold snap, and Futakuchi can’t seem to get warm enough, and he _knows_ these little shits are somehow responsible for that, too. Depression made kids cold in _Harry Potter_. It probably works that way in real life, too.

“Dude, what’s your problem? You usually give me some sarcasm by this point. Or at least try to bite my head off,” Terushima says.

Futakuchi feels like biting his head off. But not in a friendly way. Not a way he can easily come back from, even if he does blame it on a bad mood. Because Terushima doesn’t _get it_. He doesn’t understand that Futakuchi is second-guessing every stranger he passes on the street, looking for ashen skin or pitch black eyes. He can’t seem to keep the little fucks away from him. Oikawa is no help and Kamasaki seems to have vanished off the face of the planet. Even Sawamura seems to be avoiding volleyball practice (something Terushima has been vocally disappointed about).

But he can’t bite Terushima’s head off like that, so Futakuchi does the next best thing, and stays silent. He hasn’t yet reached the point where he’s _that_ self-sabotaging.

“Do I need to kick that guy’s ass?” Terushima asks, totally serious.

Futakuchi lets out a wild laugh before he can stop himself.

“I’m serious. If that guy is this much of an asshole, he doesn’t deserve you, and I’ll stomp him into the ground to teach ‘im a lesson.”

“He doesn’t—?” Futakuchi laughs again, more bitter this time. People are beginning to give him strange looks. Fine, that’s fine. He’s just the crazy pre-med guy waiting for the world’s longest light. He _feels_ crazy. “You know what—you see him around, _please_ kick his ass.”

“Is he why you’re acting so down?” Terushima suspiciously asks.

“There’s a lot on my plate right now.”

“Like… him? Like nightmares, trouble sleeping? You look like you haven’t slept in years, man. It’s not a good look for ya. Shirabu an’ Ennoshita can pull that kinda thing off, but you’re like, all put-together and shit. You maintain a facade, you hear me? And it’s slipping, and it’s creeping me the hell out.”

Futakuchi wishes Terushima didn’t have to have one of his uncannily sharp moments right now. “I’ve been having trouble sleeping,” he agrees, because it’s an easy target. True, even. He doesn’t remember what kind of nightmares he’s been having, but he hasn’t been able to sleep through the night in ages. “What about you? All you’ve been doing is bitching about your classes or Sawamura-san missing from practice.”

“I mean, Bokuto-senpai’s out, too. The team’s a mess, but hell if I know what’s going on. Maybe some bug is going around.”

Futakuchi can tell Terushima isn’t buying his bullshit for a second.

But he doesn’t have any other defenses. “Maybe,” he grunts.

 

—

 

“Kou-chan?” Oikawa sits up, half startled that someone’s apparently breaking into his apartment, and half startled because he’d been dozing against Iwaizumi’s shoulder. Iwaizumi looks up, very much awake, but Oikawa doesn’t have any time to donate to the question of why Iwaizumi hadn’t woken him, considering Sugawara staggering into their apartment looking like a zombie. “You should have texted if you were coming over, Kou-chan. I could’ve been doing something naughty.”

Sugawara doesn’t laugh.

Sugawara, in fact, looks an awful lot like he’s been crying.

“What’s wrong?” Iwaizumi asks, concern overtaking everything else. Always ready to help, at a moment’s notice, covering Oikawa’s ill-timed joking as effortlessly as ever.

Sugawara rubs at his eyes, then blinks at them like he’s seeing them now for the first time.

Oikawa quickly guides him over to the couch, and Iwaizumi sets about to making him tea while Oikawa frets. Sugawara doesn’t look injured, but despite his close proximity to more fights than even Iwaizumi gets to see, he’s never really gotten hurt like that.

“I thought someone else needed to know,” Sugawara mumbles and wipes at his dry eyes again. They’re red, but at this point, Oikawa isn’t certain if that’s from crying or his angry rubbing. When he tries to do it again, Oikawa gently catches his hands, and brings them down to their laps.

“What do we need to know? Is everything alright?”

“Daichi is… D-Daichi’s…” Sugawara’s voice hitches, and cracks on a dry sob. Alarm shoots through Oikawa. Sugawara is one of the strongest people he knows, and not exactly the weeping type.

“What happened?” Iwaizumi asks, standing on the other side of the couch, tea already forgotten in his hands. “What happened to Daichi?”

“Someone needed to—needed to know,” Sugawara forces out, entire frame shaking with his crying, though his cheeks remain dry. His voice is hoarse, and his breathing is shallow and erratic. Oikawa begins to worry about hyperventilation. “Daichi is—he’s dead.”

“He’s… what?” Oikawa dumbly repeats.

Sawamura Daichi is one of the most balanced, composed people Oikawa knows, both in a personal sense as well as magical. Oikawa had only ever fought with him once, and while fire everywhere had been a definite concern, Sawamura’s strength had been unrivaled.

He can’t be dead.

Iwaizumi sits on the arm of the couch nearest Sugawara. His hands hover, unsure if he should touch or not. This much, at least, Oikawa can handle; at the first gentle touch, Sugawara falls into him, sobbing into his sweater. Oikawa wraps his arms around him and gives Iwaizumi a look over the top of his head.

_Now what?_

“I know that Bokuto is still u-upset, and I don’t need—I can handle myself, but someone—you had to know, someone had to _know_ ,” Sugawara chokes out, voice muffled by fabric and wrecked by his own grief. Grief insurmountable and impossible for Oikawa to take away. He holds him tighter.

“What about Bokuto?” Iwaizumi asks, as gently as he can manage. Worry may come naturally to him, but softness doesn’t.

“Shh, Kou-chan. Breathe for me,” Oikawa murmurs. He runs his fingers through Sugawara’s hair and keeps his own breathing as measured as possible, coaxing him to fall into the same rhythm. He doesn’t try to tell him it will be alright. He doesn’t know how this can ever be alright.

They’ve long since known that people can die from this. But it’s been a long time; Oikawa had naively assumed that they had finally figured out the balance to keeping ahead of tragedy.

“I-I can’t tell Bokuto,” Sugawara eventually says. His voice still shakes, and his breath hitches every so often, but it seems he’s cried himself out. Oikawa wonders how many tears he’s already shed. He can’t imagine. “I can’t tell him, too.”

“I’ll tell Bokuto,” Iwaizumi offers, gently.

“Kuroo is watching him,” Sugawara murmurs. He sounds drugged, speech half-slurred now. His fingers are still tight in Oikawa’s sweater, however. “Kuroo—I don’t think he knows. But who knows what Bokuto told him about Akaashi…”

“Why would Bocchan say anything about Kei-chan?” Oikawa asks.

Sugawara freezes in his arms. Slowly, he raises his head, horror now warring with the grief in his expression. “I thought—Kamasaki told you guys.”

“Told us what.”

“Akaashi died three days ago. It’s why—Daichi thought we could finally kill a shadow, figure out the trick to it. But no—he just _died_ , too! If you kill them, then you die, too! There’s no beating them, and they’ll just kill you, and eat you, and you _can’t win_!” Sugawara falls into hiccuping, trembling sobbing again, and Oikawa numbly holds him, finally having run out of words. “We never could have won.”

 

—

 

Futakuchi pauses when he steps out of the elevator; there is someone slumped by his apartment door.

He recognizes that dyed hair, and he sort of recognizes the strange outfit. Kamasaki sits by his door, one leg extended, the other drawn up to his chest, with both his arms wrapped around his knee. His head is buried in his arms. In the light, Futakuchi can see his magical uniform a little better.

Still sleeveless for sure. What Futakuchi had thought black in the sunset is actually dark brown, trimmed with bright, shimmering gold. The top is collared and deep-cut—from his positioning, Futakuchi can only see a little, unfortunately—and his gloves (fingerless) come up past his elbow in thick, criss-crossing straps. He doesn’t wear booty shorts or stockings, pants seeming almost _normal_ , if vaguely camo-looking. His boots come up to his knees, pants tucked right into the tops, and instead of a belt, he has a bright gold sash with trailing ends around his waist.

Futakuchi stands before him, and Kamasaki still doesn’t stir. He rolls his eyes, nudges him with his shoe, and tells him, “You look like an ad for bondagewear. Are you coming onto me again, Kamasaki-san?”

Kamasaki’s head lolls, first, before he fixes a bleary-eyed look up at Futakuchi. His cheeks are flushed, eyes rimmed in red, and his gaze is hazy.

“Are you _drunk_?” Futakuchi asks, shocked and a little impressed. “It’s three in the afternoon. Why are you drunk already?”

“I’ve been _drunk_ ,” Kamasaki spits, voice thick, and doesn’t finish the sentence.

“Yes, you look it. Did anyone see you out here?” God, just what Futakuchi needs, on top of everything else. It figures that _this_ is how Kamasaki barges back into his life. Why did Futakuchi care? Kamasaki clearly didn’t care about him—aside from secretive declarations of love and saving him so desperately from a same-faced monster—okay, he’s only making himself angrier while thinking about this.

“Whadday is it?” Kamasaki slurs at him, then promptly falls over onto Futakuchi’s feet.

“God. It’s Wednesday, and it’s three in the afternoon, and are you telling me you’ve gone on some sort of magical knight _bender_ while you’ve been avoiding me?” Futakuchi steps out from under him, and Kamasaki’s head hits the floor with kind of a nasty (but funny) _whump_.

_He_ doesn’t wear glasses as some sort of really dumb disguise. But, studying his face, Futakuchi picks out old bruises and a scrape near his hairline.

It takes a significant amount of manhandling and frustration to haul a man Kamasaki’s size into his apartment, but somehow, Futakuchi manages it. An alarming amount of little shadows try to follow them in, swarming Kamasaki’s boots like eager puppies, but Futakuchi stomps most of them out. Kamasaki ends up sprawled across the nice, soft couch. He groans as if it’s made of nails.

Futakuchi sincerely hopes he does not puke on his couch. Or anywhere in the living room. Knowing Futakuchi’s luck right now, _that_ would be the time his wayward roommate decides to pop back in.

“I’m getting you some water. Can you sit up?” Futakuchi calls from the safety of the kitchen.

Kamasaki groans pathetically from the couch.

_This is karma, isn’t it_ , he thinks in despair. He’d assumed he had paid his karmic toll dealing with Koganegawa the past two and a half years, but no, Futakuchi must has been _terrible_ in a past life. Perhaps he’s so shitty in this life that he’s already trying to make up for it.

Futakuchi glares at a little mote of blackness that’d managed to sneak in. He stomps it out, too.

Kamasaki has managed to prop himself up under his own power, so Futakuchi takes it as a good sign. He only spills a little bit of the water, too. Futakuchi crouches down between Kamasaki’s spread knees, so he’s lower that his eye level, and peers up at him.

“Are you alright?”

“Are _you_ alright?” Kamasaki shoots back like this is a playground argument. He groans a moment later, and Futakuchi barely catches the half-full cup before he dumps it across the couch. “God, I want you to be alright. Just once.”

“I’m alright,” Futakuchi carefully replies. He moves the cup _far_ away from the creepy drunk man who Futakuchi has _no_ idea how to approach. “Remember, you saved me from that shadow? I’m alright, see?”

“Akaashi ain’t,” Kamasaki replies.

“Matsukawa-san heals. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

“Matsukawa sells _lies_ —like, like we _all_ do!”

“Let’s lower our voices, and let’s just talk this out,” Futakuchi says, like Shirabu has said for their drunk group so many times. Even if he’s usually one of the loud, drunk ones, at least he has some experience with this sort of thing. He doesn’t need his neighbors complaining again. “Why are you lying, Kamasaki-san?”

“Stop calling me that,” Kamasaki snarls and leans down to get in Futakuchi’s face. He overbalances, however, and Futakuchi barely catches him before they end up headbutting. “Ya don’t call me that. You’re not polite like that!”

“I’m trying to be _nice_ ,” Futakuchi mutters under his breath.

Kamasaki, thankfully, doesn’t appear to have heard him. He sits back up and presses the heels of his palms against his eyes. “I’m outta magic,” he groans, suddenly sounding alarmingly close to tears.

“I’m sure that stuff… comes back, with rest, or something.”

“It _doesn’t_. It don’t work like that, but even if it did—I’m too much a coward to keep tryin’! I’m so tired of this fucking magic, Kenji.”

Futakuchi has no snappy retort for the sudden use of his given name. Kamasaki had said it so naturally.

“You don’t even remember, do you,” Kamasaki continues, voice catching on the end, “you don’t remember that magic comes with costs. Did Oikawa tell ya that? No, of _course_ he didn’t, he’s a coward, too.”

“All I know about magic is what you or Oikawa has told me,” Futakuchi says, neutral, and ten times more cautious. “No, no one’s told me that there are costs. What kind of costs?” _Is it more than creating monsters that try to eat you?_ Why would anyone even _want_ magic with all of the monkey’s paw shit that goes on with it?

Kamasaki grins from beneath his wrists, but he still hides his eyes. He looks like a serial killer. “The high an’ mighty _Oikawa-san_ breaks his own goddamn bones every time he uses that strength a’ his. He ain’t such hot shit when he’s breakin’ himself with every other step, huh?”

That sounds exactly like something Oikawa might do. It also sounds exactly like the sort of thing Iwaizumi would forbid. Futakuchi isn’t going to try to butt into their weird set-up, and he supposes this isn’t information he _strictly_ needed to know, but they’ve kept important details from him in the past.

“What about you?” Futakuchi asks, and places his hand on Kamasaki’s knee. Kamasaki jumps as though Futakuchi burned him.

“Doesn’t matter. I’m out. All I’m good for is shootin’ things now.”

“You have a magical girl _gun_?” Futakuchi asks before he can help himself.

“It’s a _bow_. Magic arrows an’ shit.”

“I suppose that _does_ explain your arms…”

This time, when Kamasaki groans, frustration bleeds into his voice, not more sorrow. “Do you _ever_ take _anything_ seriously?”

“I thought arguing with you would help distract you,” Futakuchi says, and only after it’s voiced does he realize what an asshole thing it is. He’d had some weird feeling, some vague memory of how Kamasaki grins when they bicker, but now, he sees he’d been reading too much into it.  

Kamasaki leans down, toward him, eyes full of something Futakuchi doesn’t want to understand. They both open their mouths to speak at the same moment.

Futakuchi’s front door _bangs_ open.

Oikawa strides inside, in full knight garb, like he owns the place. “Kamasaki-san, you and I need to have a fucking _chat_.”

“What the hell are you doing in my place _again_?!” Futakuchi snaps, standing, fists clenched at his sides.

“Looking for you, Ken-chan!” Oikawa chirps with murder in his eyes. “But since the target in question is here, it saves me the time of tracking him down. Are Ken-chan and Kamasaki-san getting _chummy_ now?”

Kamasaki huffs, resigned. Futakuchi is about to come between them, if that’s what it takes for Oikawa to back the fuck off.

But Oikawa, of course, shoves Futakuchi aside with all the ease in the world. He hauls Kamasaki up by the back of the shirt, and marches out the way he came, while Futakuchi scrambles back to his feet.

He hears them shouting all the way down the hallway.

They’re already in the stairwell by the time he’s out his front door. Damn their magical speed bullshit. The elevator is too slow, but it turns out to be a blessing; when he rushes to the stairs, he hears the roof door slam shut above him, and does not go looking for them on the ground.

It takes Futakuchi precious time to make it to the top.

By the time he throws open the heavy door, Oikawa holds Kamasaki over the edge of the roof, one hand twisted in the thick bands crossing over Kamasaki’s chest. Kamasaki hangs limply in his grasp, though his eyes are open and he seems aware enough. His attention flickers over to Futakuchi for a moment, but Oikawa ignores him.

“When were you going to _tell us_?!” Oikawa demands, shaking Kamasaki like a ragdoll.

“Sawamura told Bokuto—I figured he’d be the adult in this. He’s always cleanin’ up after us, ain’t he?”

“ _Sawamura is dead_!” Oikawa roars and whips Kamasaki around, throwing him into the door Futakuchi has just vacated. He ducks with a swear. Kamasaki dents the heavy metal door, and while he lays there, he’s still conscious.

Futakuchi processes what he’s just heard.

Horribly, his first thought is _what about Terushima?_

“Sawamura ain’t dead. It’s _Akaashi_ ,” Kamasaki says from his heap by Futakuchi’s feet.

“Ken-chan, out of the way. You’re going to get yourself killed if you keep acting stupid,” Oikawa growls. When he stomps over to them, each step cracks the cement beneath him.

“What are you _doing_? I thought—knights were supposed to protect justice and light and shit, right? Why are you fighting _each other_?”

“Because Kamasaki got his entire _team_ killed and decided to fuck off instead of tell anyone else!”

“Sawamura said—”

“And where the hell did that get _him_?!” Oikawa leaps past Futakuchi, long past warnings, and his boot goes through the steel door, a hair’s breadth from Kamasaki’s head. “Where the hell were _you_?! Bocchan is on suicide watch and Kou-chan hasn’t left my room—these were _your people_!”

“ _You’re_ the ones who didn’t want to work together!”

“You and Kei-chan were _so secretive_ with all your bullshit. Where did all those secrets get you now?” Oikawa hisses and yanks his foot free with a screech of metal.

“Would you two _stop_ yelling at each other?” Futakuchi breaks in, and pulls at Oikawa’s arm. It’s like yanking on a brick wall, but it certainly gets Oikawa’s attention.

He lifts Futakuchi by the front of his sweatshirt. “Stop sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong,” he growls with a voice like thunder.

For a moment, his eyes seem too dark, like they’re black. Futakuchi _freezes_ in total reflexive terror.

“ _OIKAWA_!”

It is not Kamasaki leaping to his defense, but to be fair, it really is only Iwaizumi’s angry bellow that can get Oikawa to freeze so quickly.

Matsukawa lands on the rooftop, scarf fluttering, Iwaizumi in his arms. He hardly waits until he’s let down before he’s stomping over to Oikawa.

Oikawa drops Futakuchi, and Futakuchi lands ungracefully on his ass. “Iwa-chan, I—”

Iwaizumi slugs him. Futakuchi crawls away from what’s about to be a third world war, and he finds Kamasaki curled on his side, hands pressed to his eyes again. “Are you okay?” he asks, loudly enough to be heard over the escalating argument behind them.

“Why’re _you_ asking _me_?” Kamasaki demands. “You heard him! God, Sawamura’s dead too, and I can’t—I can’t do this anymore—”

Futakuchi must be addled—and he blames his haywire emotions on the fright of Oikawa’s anger as well as seeing Kamasaki such a mess—because he pulls Kamasaki into his arms. Kamasaki presses into him like a drowning man gasping for air. Futakuchi shuffles around so his legs are more comfortable, and Kamasaki crawls halfway into his lap without needing further invitation.

Futakuchi lets him.

It’s all fucked, anyway, so he lets his stupid, overly familiar emotions take over, just this once.

“I hate it when it’s him,” Kamasaki confesses in a croaky, raw voice. It doesn’t sound like he’s crying, though. Futakuchi hopes that’s a good sign. “It was him when I first—I swear he fucking _remembers_ it.”

“Right,” Futakuchi says. He doesn’t get it at all.

“Akaashi, he—we had a deal. We wouldn’t ever let the other get eaten. Sawamura didn’t agree, he said there was always a way, but we… always had that deal. It worked, a couple of times. But now we’re both done, and everyone’s fucking _dying_.” Kamasaki’s hands tighten in Futakuchi’s sweatshirt. He’s stopped trembling, at least, and his voice is clear. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do when it’s your turn.”

“Hey now, why the hell do _I_ have to die? Like, at all? Let’s avoid that,” Futakuchi nervously tells him.

Kamasaki raises his head enough to glare in Oikawa’s direction. Futakuchi follows his gaze, and finds Oikawa on his knees, silently sobbing into the front of Iwaizumi’s shirt. Iwaizumi still appears livid, but he cards his hands through Oikawa’s hair with the utmost tenderness.

Matsukawa, standing behind them like some sort of fetish gear schoolboy guardian angel, catches their eye, and slowly shakes his head.

Futakuchi helps Kamasaki back downstairs and into his apartment as quietly as he can manage. He lets Kamasaki sleep on his couch, though he offers his bed. He sleeps through the afternoon, into the evening, and is still out cold when Futakuchi goes to his big, empty bed by himself.

Like a ghost, he’s gone in the morning when Futakuchi wakes.

 

—

 

“What do you want,” Oikawa asks, glaring at him over the edge of his textbook.

“I just want to know what the… process is. For when knights die,” Futakuchi tiredly replies. Oikawa’s eyes narrow further behind his glasses. There is no Matsukawa or Iwaizumi to pull them apart today. Futakuchi doesn’t want a fight, though.

“It _doesn’t_ concern you, Ken-chan,” Oikawa replies, and forgets to make it sound sweet.

“I get that. But I have a friend who… I just want to know if I can tell him anything.”

Oikawa’s expression doesn’t soften, nor does he stop his glaring. In a voice just as biting as before, he replies, “I don’t care. Do what you want.”

“Are you still angry at Kamasaki?”

“Yes.”

“Why? What did he actually do?”

“Those were his _friends_ , or whatever passes for friend with a guy like that.” Oikawa pushes his book flat against the table with a too-loud _slap_. “Do you remember when you almost died? Part of the reason we let it get so far is that we’d assumed he was going to take care of it himself. I’d assumed he cared about you. Guess not, huh?”

There, the sweetness is finally back. Oikawa even tries to smile.

Futakuchi hadn’t forgotten, though; he didn’t need the reminder. He’s been wondering the same thing.

 

—

 

Futakuchi has Shirabu on speed dial, but he wants to try doing this on his own.

He has booze, and comfort food, and as many answers as he himself has. He doesn’t want Terushima to find this out in a few weeks when it hits the news circuit. He doesn’t want him to have to hear about missing persons reports, or questionable cause of death, or whatever else will get dragged out. He deserves to know the truth.

“Dude, what’s all this for?” Terushima asks as soon as he’s inside. “We getting wasted tonight? What’s the reason?”

Belatedly, Futakuchi realizes he probably expects more Kamasaki angst. Futakuchi can compartmentalize for now.

“Remember when Shirabu was convinced I had some sort of bad trip?”

“He said it was one of them night terrors, but yeah, that came up, too.”

“I almost got _eaten_. By a monster,” Futakuchi tells him. He nods over to the couch. “Sit down. This will take awhile.”

“Dude, who died? You’re acting like this is really serious.”

Of all the fucking jokes to make. Futakuchi pinches the bridge of his nose and wills himself to have something approaching tact. “I don’t have any proof right now. You’re going to have to go with me for a little bit, because I’m trying to give you the truth, and some context is needed before I sound crazy and this comes out insensitive.”

Terushima nods, sits down, and folds his hands in his lap. Futakuchi preemptively hands him a beer, and grabs one for himself.

Futakuchi explains what the last few weeks of his life had been. Terushima has already heard a lot of the Kamasaki stuff, but now, Futakuchi explains more—his initial goal with the date, the Kamasaki shadow, and how stupidly possessive Kamasaki had gotten. He outs Oikawa and Matsukawa as magical knights without remorse. He touches on Akaashi as vaguely as he can.

But then, of course, he gets into his conversation with Sugawara the day they had run into Akaashi.

And Terushima realizes, eyes going wide and bright and clearly enjoying the joke. “Sawamura-san is a knight too? That’s what he’s gone so often from practice! Man, he must work twice as hard to remain a starter if he’s living a double life full of magic and shit.”

“It’s _not_ funny!” Futakuchi exclaims, louder than he intended. Terushima blinks up at him. Futakuchi gulps down more beer to put off the inevitable. “People get hurt. I almost _died_ —even Iwaizumi-san freaked out about that. Akaashi… died.”

“What?” Terushima asks, smile faltering.

“He died. People are dying. This is real, and it’s serious.”

“Bokuto-senpai hasn’t been at practice, but… What? No.”

Futakuchi shuts his eyes and takes a steeling breath. He needs to get it over with. Rip it off like a bandage. “Sawamura, too.”

Terushima is silent, and Futakuchi doesn’t dare look at him.

“He’s dead, too.” Futakuchi swallows down half the bottle in one go, and his stomach roils. Too late, he wonders when the last time he ate something more than shitty conbini crap had been. Iwaizumi hadn’t been kidding about the shot appetite thing, but he’d expected to have bounced back by _now_.

When Futakuchi finally reopens his eyes, he finds two cat-sized shadows seated on either side of Terushima, their grubby little claws tracing his thighs like some sort of shitty magical escort service.

_How long does it take before he can see them?_ Futakuchi thinks, for a horrible moment, and wonders if he leaves them, if he can prove to Terushima that he’s not making this all up.

“This is a really shitty joke, man. It’s in real poor taste,” Terushima tells him.

Futakuchi shakes his head.

“I’m serious, this is low, even for you. You don’t just joke about shit like this—”

“It’s _not_ a joke! I dealt with some sort of breakdown from Kamasaki yesterday, and Oikawa nearly killed him, and everyone’s freaking out about this! It’s _real_.”

“He’s just _sick_ ,” Terushima snaps. “You’re a fucking bastard, Futakuchi. This is _mean_ , and you’re not usually this bad.”

“Yeah, I’m an asshole, but I’m telling you the truth.”

“Fuck you!”

“Fuck _you_!” Futakuchi retorts on reflex. He groans into his hands when he realizes what he’s said, and Terushima stands, shoulders rigid and hands fisted at his sides. “Terushima—I’m sorry. I’m trying to—I don’t know what I’m trying to do. I’m drowning here, and I don’t know what I’m doing, and I just thought you’d want to know the truth.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but sort your shit out. Go to fucking student health already! Do you know _how often_ Shirabu gets on my case about trying to drag you there?”

“Shirabu can fight his own goddamn battles,” Futakuchi cries, exasperated. “Stop being so _nice_ for a moment so he stops getting you to do his dirty work!”

“Stop _being_ the dirty work we have to haul around! Stop being such a goddamn attention whore that you feel like you gotta make up shit like this. Get your shit together, stop being someone we _have_ to drag around and try to cheer up and pretend like nothing’s wrong!”

Futakuchi reels back, unexpectedly hurt. He hadn’t thought… No, he’d _known_ he’s a mess, but he hadn’t thought his friends thought that, too.

To his credit, Terushima looks like he wants to take that back, but he’s too wrapped up in his own anger to swallow his pride. Futakuchi knows the feeling intimately. Even understanding that, however, Futakuchi is _hurt_ , and his own defense of his heart causes him to lash out further.

“I knew you were thick, but why the _fuck_ would I make up something like this?!” Futakuchi grabs at one of the shadows clinging to Terushima’s leg, but Terushima mistakes it as a lunge toward _him_. He kicks Futakuchi in the shoulder, sending him back on his ass, and the only victory is that he has the little monster fuck clutched in his hands. “You can’t see this, but—”

“Call me when you’re done being a psychopathic _asshole_ for two consecutive seconds!” Terushima shouts before slamming the door behind himself.

Futakuchi throws the shadow at the shut door.

He _feels_ like a goddamned mess. He’s always been an asshole. But his friends—what kind of friends were _they_?

_I’m just bogging them down? They hate me_ , Futakuchi realizes, chest aching and eyes prickling. He’d had these dark thoughts alone, late at night, but he’s never gotten _confirmation_. His own friends hate him. They _put up_ with him at best.

And they’re right, aren’t they? All he’s done is whine about Kamasaki and whine about being alone. Who the hell tries to help their friend by telling them their huge crush is _dead_?

The shadow he’d thrown at the wall earlier comes oozing back over to him, larger than before. He kicks at it, scuttling away, but his ragged breathing and aching heart ruin him. It crawls up its leg like the horror movie monster it is.

As it moves, it sheds more, spawning more little blobby monsters. They chew on his fingers, harmless and nothing he can feel, but he can’t get all of them off.

“This is _your fault_!” he shouts at them. “This is your fucking fault! You’re making me into—into this burden, and everyone hates me, and _you’re_ the ones doing this to me!”

He knows it’s not their fault.

It’s his. _He’s_ the one like this.

Futakuchi collapses on the floor, tears finally coming, swarmed with the vile little shadows.

 

—

 

Terushima had gotten Sawamura’s phone number last semester, when he’d begged notes off him occasionally. It had been a great leap of progress at the time. They’ve only texted a handful of times, and he’s never called him, but it’s been a happy little entry into his contacts list.

Terushima glares at the number now as he sullenly slinks home.

He lives across campus from Futakuchi, and fuck him for making him walk all that way _twice_.

Guilt gnaws at his stomach, over the things he should not have said. But anger makes it easy to push that away. Let someone else play mediator if they care. Futakuchi can be a bastard, but that’s a new low, and it still makes Terushima want to punch something.

_Is that supposed to scare me into talking to him or something?_ he wonders, and his thumb hovers over the call button.

He _hadn’t_ seen Sawamura _or_ Sugawara at practice in a few days. Bokuto, either. If something _had_ happened…

Terushima shakes his head. Futakuchi was fucking with him, in a really mean way. News of that kind of tragedy always spread around campus pretty quickly, and they always had stuff like memorials and stuff in no time flat. There’s no way two students could have died—killed by _monsters_ , how stupid—and no one knew. That sort of thing just didn’t happen.

Against his better judgment, he hits the call button.

Sawamura’s phone rings and rings and rings. It clicks over to voicemail, a generic kind that just lists the number rather than the name. Terushima hangs up before he can leave a message.

Great, now his number was going to pop up in Sawamura’s phone, and he had no excuse except Futakuchi talking shit, _as usual_.

Terushima taps out a quick text to Sawamura. “ _sorry for the call!! just wanted to make sure u were feeling alright!! missed you at practice_ ”

Wait, that sounds too eager. It’s not like Terushima is on the team, after all, and he doesn’t want to admit to any more stalkery tendencies than he must. Sure, Sawamura usually notices him, but there’s no need to call attention to it.

Terushima has _almost_ perfected his message, walking on autopilot with his nose in his phone, when he hears a _very_ familiar voice shouting nearby. His head snaps up.

Sugawara is illuminated on the opposite side of the street by a streetlight. His hair is nearly white in the harsh light. Terushima falters, perplexed— _Futakuchi said Sugawara-san was supposed to be holed up somewhere_ —but this is definitely Sugawara, and he’s definitely screaming himself hoarse at someone trying to follow him.

Oikawa steps into the light of the streetlight. The light washes him out, too, making him seem too pale, hair too dark. Despite Sugawara’s anger, he doesn’t respond. Terushima tries not to pay too much attention, but with everything Futakuchi had just thrown at him, it’s damn hard to ignore this.

And it’ll be easy to talk about Sawamura with his boyfriend right there. No need to make it awkward, just casually ask how he was doing, if he was sick or what. No problem.

“Are you supposed to be the dark parts, is that it?! Are you all the guilty, repressed shit? The evil twin?” Sugawara shouts, stumbling backwards, gesturing wide with both arms. Terushima catches sight of a bottle in one of his hands. “ _Answer me_ , damn it! Why the hell don’t you ever just _talk_?!”

Oikawa lunges forward, trying to keep Sugawara from his wild, staggering walk. But he hits him a little too hard, and Sugawara might be drunk, because he stumbles and they fall onto the sidewalk.

Terushima jogs across the street. He hears a bottle smash, and he drops into a dead run.

Sugawara slices up at Oikawa with his broken bottle, teeth bared like a cornered animal—and to Terushima’s horror, Oikawa is trying to _bite_ him. “Dude! What the fuck?!” Terushima runs over to them, trying to pull Oikawa off of Sugawara, but apparently being that big means he’s made of _lead_ or something. He doesn’t budge.  

“Terushima-kun?!” Sugawara asks, shocked, and Oikawa claws into his shoulder in the lull. “Fuck it—go _away_!”

“Oikawa, what the hell is your deal? Get off him!” Terushima growls, trying again to pull him off.

“ _You_ , Terushima!” Sugawara snarls. He jams the broken bottle into the side of Oikawa’s face, and they roll, Sugawara ending up on top. Blood begins dripping onto the sidewalk below, and red seeps through Sugawara’s sweater where Oikawa had scratched him. “Get out of here.”

“No! I’m not letting you two get into some sort of bar fight!” Terushima replies, and grabs the bottle out of Sugawara’s hand before anything worse can happen. “I’m calling the police—”

Oikawa lunges upward and grabs Sugawara’s throat in both his hands, squeezing hard.

Sugawara does not fight him. It’s as if all the fight drains out of him— _any_ fight, any kind of self-preservation instinct. Oikawa’s nails draw blood in his throat. Sugawara stares ahead at nothing, and there is so much raw grief in his expression that Terushima _knows_.

“Let _go_ of him!” He throws himself at Oikawa, trying to break his grip, but the three of them just go tumbling on the sidewalk. Oikawa still doesn’t respond, but he lashes out at them with all the ferocity of the monsters Futakuchi had described.

It could be true. Monsters could exist. Tragedy could have happened. Terushima can’t rationalize that _and_ fight against a too-strong Oikawa at the same time, however—and Sugawara kicks him, out of the way of a swipe, away from the fight.

Oikawa digs his claws back into Sugawara’s neck.

Futakuchi had told him the truth. Sawamura could be dead. Sugawara _isn’t fighting back_. This is a monster. These thoughts play on loop in his brain, screaming at him, tearing his emotions into a torrent that threatens to overwhelm him.

But he’s always been good at acting on instinct. And his instinct is to stop this, and protect Sugawara.

“ _No_!” Terushima shouts, and when he dives at them again, this time, he’s accompanied by a flash of light.

He jumps farther than he thought he would. This time, Oikawa moves; he’s thrown clear off Sugawara, into the bushes lining the sidewalk.

Terushima rolls to a stop, and, in examining his abrupt, confusing change of clothes, he manages to ignite his hand in fire.

It doesn’t hurt.

He catches sight of Sugawara, bleeding but safe, and the firelight reflects in the wide, horrified way he stares at Terushima’s hands.

 

—

 

_You who are worthy, with the will to protect and the courage to act, are granted the ring, the strength, and the duty of the knight._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: There is a hospital, there are confessions, and there is a plan to stop this tragedy. 
> 
> (( kamasaki's knight outfit is based loosely upon [bakugou from bnha](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/bokunoheroacademia/images/6/6a/Katsuki_Bakugou_Hero_Costume_Full_Body.png/revision/latest?cb=20170718224312). his color is gold. (also, daichi's color had been blue, and akaashi's had been green.) ))


	4. and once hope betrays you, you can't help but let the devil inside

“ _Oikawa_!” Hanamaki screams and shoves at Futakuchi’s head. Futakuchi tightens his hold on his waist, more carrying than dragging him now, hauling him away from the grisly sight behind him. “Let me down, you bastard! He’s _still alive_!”

“You know what’s going down!” Futakuchi snarls back. Hanamaki elbows him in the head, but Futakuchi holds on tight. “Fucking— _stop it_ , Hanamaki! You know we can’t do a thing!”

“I can fucking save him!” He tries to knee him in the stomach, but Futakuchi grabs his thigh like a threat.

“No, you _can’t_. You can make it stop hurting, and then it’ll eat you, too. And then you _both_ die!”

“Fix it! Fix it fix it _fixitfixitfixit_ —” Hanamaki cuts himself off with a scream as the ring explodes behind them. They both go sprawling, and Hanamaki gets away from him while Futakuchi tries to right himself.

Oikawa Tooru rises from his own body with black eyes and a slasher smile.

“Finally,” he says with a voice like hell itself.

Futakuchi finds he’s out of magic, just like that.

 

—

 

Futakuchi wakes on his living room floor with a ragged gasp.

A shadow sits squarely on his chest, fat and _heavy_ , like Futakuchi could actually feel it. Every breath is a struggle, and none of his limbs respond properly. He knows he ought to move. His back and neck both hurt, and in some dimly self-aware part of his brain still functioning, he knows this is Bad.

But for the most part, he’s just tired. He doesn’t want to be awake anymore.

He misses Kamasaki, but he’s probably just a burden on him, too.

Futakuchi falls back asleep while the biggest shadow atop him licks its jagged lips.

 

—

 

“Good thing you have us to haul your ass out of the fire, huh?” Bokuto asks with a sly look.

Futakuchi groans.

“We’ll accept you calling us senpai. I mean, we kind of deserve it, bein’ your upperclassmen and all, _and_ we’ve been at this longer than you,” Kuroo adds, on Futakuchi’s other side.

Futakuchi groans even louder. He hates this. “I rather would’ve gotten eaten. Drop me down to the shadows’ mercies, please, senpai. Anything to prevent being subjected to _you two_.”

“Woah, man, we _just met_!” Bokuto cries in dismay. “Well, like this. Magical an’ stuff. I kinda knew who you were before—you were on that team with Hinata’s friend, right? The green team?”

“Dateko,” Kuroo supplies. “Good blockers. We did a training camp with you guys once. Weren’t you captain?”

There is not enough groaning in the _universe_ for this. Futakuchi must be burning off a hell of a lot of bad karma from a past life. “You know, I work alone. For a reason? I just _love_ the loneliness, and I don’t wanna hang around with you two, if it’s all the same to you, _senpai_.”

“Wow, mouthy!” Bokuto says like he’s impressed. Easy as that, he drops Futakuchi, until he’s just dangling from Kuroo’s arms. “You’re kind of an asshole for a knight, you know that?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard.”

“Don’t mind him. I’m sure you do good work.”

“Doesn’t bother me either way. If you two will excuse me, I’d rather not be here, and I’m late for a date.”

As he leaves, he hears Bokuto say to Kuroo, “I bet you can get to dates _really fast_ if you use magic! Wanna race?”

The _standards_ of knights these days. Futakuchi shakes his head and tries to forget them both. He doesn’t need help with this.

 

—

 

“No-no-nono _no_ ,” someone says above him. Futakuchi blinks, but his vision doesn’t clear; everything is blobby and bleary. “Stay with me, goddamnit. _Stay with me_.”

So now he’s upset someone else. Futakuchi tries to raise his head, fails, and closes his eyes again.

Someone smacks his cheek. Not hard, but hard enough, and he blinks his eyes open again. His vision is a _little_ clearer this time.

“Kamasaki,” Futakuchi realizes with a sigh. He just saw him. He’s supposed to be dating him, isn’t he? No, that’d been a dream, but Futakuchi isn’t used to remembering his dreams.

He remembers flying. Maybe jumping. It’d _felt_ like flying.

He closes his eyes again, but someone tugs him upright. Futakuchi’s eyes snap open, and the room sways around him. Futakuchi’s head lolls and he feels ill. He doesn’t want to have delirious talk in front of Kamasaki, and he doesn’t want to get sick in front of him, either. For some reason, it’s very important what Kamasaki thinks of him.

“You love me,” Futakuchi mumbles.

“Hello, yes—yeah, an ambulance,” Kamasaki says, close to Futakuchi, but not speaking to him. “Responsive? I mean, he’s talkin’, but he’s not upright—yeah, he’s conscious. Breathing seems to be regular, but kinda shallow.”

Futakuchi huffs a little laugh. It’s too much effort to keep his head up, so he tries to count all of the black things swirling around their feet. It looks like they’re wading through a river. They’re so tiny. Are they supposed to be cute? They’re disgusting, just like him.

“Why’re you helping me?” Futakuchi demands, albeit weakly.

Kamasaki hauls him up a little higher. He’s not wearing his sparkly magical shit anymore. Futakuchi wonders why he doesn’t just carry him, because it’s definitely not like Futakuchi’s walking himself anywhere.

Like he’s read his mind, Kamasaki scoops Futakuchi up into his arms, bridal style. It reminds him of being on a rooftop. He can’t recall why right now. It’s more comfortable, though, and his chin drops to his chest.

“Oh, fuck no, ya don’t get to pass out again,” Kamasaki huffs. “C’mon, Kenji, up. Awake. Talk to me.”

“You love me,” Futakuchi repeats.

“I do.”

At least someone does. No, wait, that’s not true. No one loves him. Futakuchi lives alone, because he _is_ alone, and that always makes him so goddamn sad. As he watches, a black, staticky monster claws its way up into his lap, nestling itself right over his belly.

“Keep talkin’,” Kamasaki orders. “Don’t touch that thing. I’m carryin’ you out, but you gotta keep talking to me. I’m takin’ you to the hospital, and you’re gonna be _fine_ , alright?”

“No magic?” Futakuchi asks with a tired laugh. He finds the notion of a hospital so funny, when magic is real. Except magic kills people, doesn’t it. Maybe this is Kamasaki’s way of sparing him. “Who are you…?”

“I’m sorry for leaving you alone so long, but come _on_. Keep talking. Don’t care about what. Grill me on anything you’ve ever wanted to know.”

“Just wanna know who you are…”

He _means_ to say this, but his tongue trips over itself, and he’s not certain how coherent he is. His mouth feels slow, tongue like cotton. His vision swims again, and the movement all makes him feel sick.

The shadow on top of him scrapes its little claws against his throat, and Futakuchi slips back into blackness.

 

—

 

“It’s nice to meet you, Kenji-kun,” the strange woman says with a warm smile. Futakuchi likes her smile, and likes her dress, but she’s still a stranger and he does not trust strangers. He clings harder to his mother’s pant leg. “Oh, he’s so shy.”

“He’s used to all my coworkers, so he tends to only warm up to people if they’re in scrubs,” his mother sighs. “I’m not sure he realizes adults can wear other things.”

“Can too,” Futakuchi mumbles.

“Then come out and say hi, already.”

He clings harder. He hates being trotted out to be shown off for all his parents’ friends. They call him cute and touch his hair and try to pick him up and he hates all of it.

His mother sighs, fondly, and ruffles his hair with one hand, taking a drag on her cigarette with the other. “He’s such a cute kid, but he’s a brat about the weirdest things. I’m sure he’ll warm up to you eventually. Maybe.”

“Maybe he’ll like Yasushi better. Not that I know where my little errant explorer has gone off to, but I’m sure they’ll have fun running around the neighborhood together. We moved here from the city, so we’re really looking forward to somewhere a little quieter…”

Futakuchi tunes out the adult talk and wonders when he’ll be allowed to leave. He wants to go back inside; it’s hot and sticky outside, and he’s not allowed to go near the river by himself, even though it would be cooler there. Inside has air conditioning, though, and the game he’d been playing.

Futakuchi’s first glimpse of Kamasaki is just a blur before he runs right into him.

His mother startles, twisting around, as both boys go sprawling in the grass.

“Yasushi!” the strange woman scolds. “You apologize this _instant_! That’s not how you behave with other children!”

Futakuchi stares up at the boy leaning over him. He’s got dirt and grass and bandaids all over him, and when he grins, he’s missing one of his front teeth. He looks wild. He looks like he can go by the river all by himself. “Hi!” the boy says without getting off of Futakuchi.

“Yasushi,” the woman repeats, aggravated, and hauls him up by an arm. “Apologize!”

“Sorry!” he exclaims without sounding sorry at all. “Kaasan, there’s a _park_ that way! Can I go?”

“Which way?”

“It’s a couple blocks that way,” Futakuchi’s mother supplies, pointing with her cigarette. “Nice place. Not really any trouble, so long as no one gets lost.”

“Alright, you can—”

“Great!” He grabs Futakuchi’s hand, tugs him onto his feet, and drags him away. Futakuchi can see how much bigger this boy is than him, but when he turns back to his mother, his mother just nods indulgently and waves him off.

Futakuchi thinks he’s being kidnapped.

He won’t go down without a fight.

“You’re new here,” Futakuchi begins, as dangerously as he can manage, “but _I’m_ in charge of the playground. You got that?”

“Uh-uh. We’re sharin’ from now on. I’m Kamasaki. You’re Futakuchi-san’s son, right? Kaasan told me I gotta make friends, so we’re gonna be friends, so this way I can stay outside all day. Didja know there’s a river nearby? We could go swimming!”

Futakuchi can’t go to the river _alone_ , but his mother had never forbidden him from going with a _friend_.

He grasps Kamasaki’s hand back, and walks beside him instead of getting tugged along. “Okay, we can be friends,” Futakuchi announces as grandly as he can manage. He’s doing Kamasaki a _favor_ , after all, since he’s new.

“Great!” he repeats with a wide grin that shows off the gap in his teeth.

 

—

 

Futakuchi wakes with his mouth tasting like ass and annoying beeping in his ears.

He realizes immediately, without even opening his eyes, that he’s in a hospital. With his mother a doctor, and being in pre-med himself, he knows hospitals better than his childhood home(s). But the issue is _why_ he’s in a hospital. Futakuchi may be familiar with them, but he doesn’t like them all that much. He’d rather avoid being in one himself if he’s not going to be wearing the coat.

Opening his eyes means being greeted with plain white walls and the brightness of an open window. He instantly regrets it.

“I saw you open your eyes,” says none other than Nametsu Mai from the vague direction of the guest chair.

“Why,” Futakuchi croaks.

“Because I’ve been worried sick about you.”

“Why,” he repeats. _Why am I here. Why are you here. Why does everything hurt._

Mai grasps his hand, and Futakuchi flexes his fingers. He has an IV, gross. He can’t imagine the kind of shitstorm this is going to turn into _now_.

_Why are you here, if you don’t care_ , Futakuchi recalls, but doesn’t voice it aloud.

“You had us all scared to _death_ ,” Mai scolds, with something suspiciously like tears in her voice. Futakuchi is glad he can’t look at her now. “God, Futakuchi. You’re usually the one so put-together with this kind of thing… You’re alright, right?”

“I don’t feel alright,” he admits. “Tired. I’m going back to sleep now.”

“No, you’re not dodging me.” He’d nearly forgotten that they’ve known each other so long, and so she knows his avoidance tactics. Not that he’s ever been particularly subtle. “If you need rest, fine,” she says, relenting, though her hand tightens on his even further, “but this isn’t something you get to dismiss like it’s nothing.”

“You don’t have to pretend to care.”

“…Pretend?” Mai repeats.

Eyes still closed, still wishing to feign sleep, Futakuchi turns from her. She doesn’t release his hand, however. “You don’t have to spare my feelings. I don’t want an argument, or a scene, or anything right now. I’m just _tired_ , but you don’t have to pretend to care about—”

“You jackass, we’ve known each other for _five years_ and you think I’d cry over someone I’m _pretending_ to care about?” Mai snaps, and Futakuchi cracks open an eye to find her standing over his bed with tears streaming down her cheeks. She drops his hand and angrily scrubs at her eyes. “You—you’re an ass, Futakuchi. You’re one of my best friends, and you scared the hell out of me. I’m not _pretending_. Terushima made it sound like you were going to die or something.”

Something cold and hard lodges itself in his chest. “Terushima?”

She nods and sniffles. Before she can say more, the room door opens.

Instead of a nurse, however, it’s Kamasaki who waltzes in.

He freezes upon the sight presented to him.

Mai hastily wipes her eyes and tries to calm her breathing. Futakuchi wishes he could fake sleep now more than ever. But to his surprise, he catches Kamasaki’s eyes linger on _Mai_. Futakuchi realizes he isn’t startled to find someone else here, he’s startled to find _her_ here.

And as soon as Mai finishes trying to make herself presentable, she looks at him like she’s seeing a ghost.

Futakuchi knows what’s going on; he’s felt it himself. That feeling of familiarity, of something _almost_ there, but nothing comes up. The feeling that something is missing, and that the piece is back, but you’re not quite sure how it fits.

“Sorry,” Kamasaki says after a too-long pause. “Didn’t realize anyone else was here.”

“Oh, um—sorry, sorry, it’s fine.” Mai sniffs one last time. Her makeup is a little smudged, but Futakuchi would rather die than point it out to her. “I’m Nametsu Mai, a friend of Futakuchi-kun’s.”

“Kamasaki,” he grunts, twice as awkward as ever.

Mai glances back at Futakuchi, and Futakuchi, unfortunately, knows that look intimately: _I see now_ , she’s saying with her eyes, _I see now why you’ve been freaking out about this guy. I see all your secrets now._

Futakuchi hates that look.

“I can come back later,” Kamasaki offers, though he lingers a moment too long to make himself believable.

“Why don’t you go tell a nurse that Futakuchi-kun is awake, and I’ll say my goodbyes? You can have him to yourself soon enough,” Mai says. Kamasaki doesn’t exactly fluster, but he does look embarrassed, and Mai in turn looks particularly pleased about that.

Kamasaki shuffles out, and Mai waits until the door shuts again before rounding on Futakuchi.

Futakuchi wonders if jumping from the bright window would kill him. He doesn’t know how high up he is. When he glances out, he sees a monster perched on the sill like a horrible little bird.

“I know what you mean about the familiarity thing,” Mai says, instead of teasing him about his _whatever_ with Kamasaki. “Oh my _god_ , it was like seeing a ghost, except I have no idea who he is. What the _hell_?”

“Right?” Futakuchi says, halfway excited despite himself. Finally, a little vindication.

 

—

 

“You’ve been asked to leave,” Iwaizumi says, coming up beside Terushima. The kid still looks awful. It’s clear he hasn’t slept, and Iwaizumi doesn’t blame him specifically for anything. He’s just a victim of circumstance, as much as Sugawara is.

But he _really_ needs him to leave Sugawara—and Oikawa—alone.

“I’m sorry,” Terushima mumbles into his knees, drawn up to his chest.

“You know why he’s upset, right?”

Terushima nods miserably. “It was—it’s Sawamura-san’s.”

“No, past tense,” Iwaizumi sighs, and he wishes he had a cigarette. This is worse than Futakuchi had ever been. Futakuchi hadn’t turned into a knight out of fucking nowhere, but then again, they’d never had rings free like this before. If everyone is truly on the same page and no _other_ surprises have popped up, then they still have another unaccounted for, too. “I don’t know much about fire magic, just what Suga’s told us about Sawamura. But I do know you have to be careful with it, alright?”

“I don’t want to use it,” Terushima says and curls up even tighter.

“No one’s gonna force you.”

“I just—I wanted to _help_ him, you know? There was that fight—that monster? I don’t know—I just wanted to help him. I never wanted to hurt him.” Based on his voice, and based on the way he’s now trembling, Iwaizumi thinks it’s a damn safe bet to assume he’s crying again. “I-I’m so _sorry_. I didn’t know. I didn’t want to hurt him!”

Iwaizumi isn’t so sure he’s _just_ talking about Sugawara anymore.

But he’s barely equipped to handle Sugawara right now, much less this kid, no matter how well-intentioned he had been. “Listen. I’m not blaming you. I know Suga is upset, but he’s not blaming you, either.” It could be stretching the truth, but Sugawara had already said a lot of foul things in his grief that he didn’t mean. He doesn’t need anyone else spawning shadows, much less a knight. “Shit like this just… happens. It’s sad, and it’s okay to get sad about it. Hell, I don’t think it ever stops hurting.”

Terushima looks up at him with watery, red eyes and a particularly snotty nose. Iwaizumi fishes out the packet of tissues he’s taken to carrying and offers it to him.

“But this is a responsibility, you hear me? There’s monsters out there, and even if you need a little while to get back on your feet, you can’t ignore them. You can’t ignore _yours_.”

“Like that one was Oikawa-san’s?” Terushima mumbles before blowing his nose.

Oikawa’s shadow being so damn close was a headache all on its own. Iwaizumi sighs through his nose and nods. “Yeah. That one was Oikawa’s, and no one’s particularly happy it’s so close. I think you should have a little bit of a grace period before you ever run into yours, but stay aware of that kinda shit.”

Terushima nods. He wipes his nose again, sniffles again, and still looks so damn miserable.

“I’m sorry,” Iwaizumi tells him, and _means_ it, “but you can’t stay here. Suga’s been through enough, and… It’s not your fault, but you’re not bringing up a lot of happy memories right now. Let things cool down a bit. Let me give you my number, and I can answer any questions you got, alright?”

Terushima nods again. Iwaizumi wishes he didn’t feel like such a shit, but he also can’t deny he’s grateful that the kid is finally leaving.

Sugawara approaching Oikawa’s shadow on his own—knowing full well what it was—is headache enough. Oikawa’s shadow being so damn close is an even worse headache.

Iwaizumi isn’t certain how they’re getting out of this one without further tragedy.

 

—

 

“I’ve been having weird dreams lately,” Futakuchi admits, looking down at his hands. “I can’t remember most of them, but I always wake up feeling like shit.”

When he peeks up at him, Kamasaki looks honestly confused. “I don’t know anything about dreams,” he replies, scratching at the back of his head. His roots are getting worse than ever, and his hair is a mess. Futakuchi wonders when the last time he’s slept. “Seriously, that one’s not me.”

“What _is_ you, then?”

“Magic. That’s all I got.”

“You _know_ things.”

“…Yeah. I know Akaashi and Sawamura are dead. I know I’m out of magic so I can’t help anyone anymore. I know Oikawa’s pissed, and Bokuto’s a fucking mess, and Sugawara must be, too. I know you scared the _hell_ out of me.”

Futakuchi does not let this warm him. “Touching. _You_ know _me_. You said…” Now, he’s not certain if it had been another dream, or some sort of fuzzy memories. He doesn’t want to bring it up, so his words hang, unfinished, between them.

“Look, I honestly don’t know _nothin’_ about dream shit. That’s on you,” Kamasaki uneasily replies.

“That’s a double negative,” Futakuchi mutters.

“Yeah, yeah. I will tell ya that all the weird feelings you got for me? That’s not magic. Those are real.”

Futakuchi glares down at his lap. “I don’t have _weird feelings_.”

“Love,” Kamasaki bluntly corrects.

“I _don’t_! I don’t—I _know_ you, yeah. You’re familiar somehow. I kinda like you. Spending time with you feels comfortable, and you know a hell of a lot more than you should know about me, especially how to argue with me.”

“You still holding a grudge over that?” Kamasaki mumbles, and he sounds _delighted_ , the jackass.

“And Mai. She did it too. It’s not just me, is it—you _know_ people.”

“…Yeah, I do,” he replies, serious once more. Futakuchi risks another glance up at him. Kamasaki’s expression is solemn, grave, with his mouth a grim line, and his eyes hard. He reaches out to put his hand over Futakuchi’s, and Futakuchi draws his back on reflex.

Something shutters in Kamasaki’s expression. Futakuchi wishes he could undo it, but he doesn’t know how without sacrificing his pride.

“Nametsu will probably figure it out first, even if she doesn’t know about magic.”

“Why won’t _you_ tell me?”

“I ain’t that strong—” He cuts himself off prematurely, looking chagrined.

Futakuchi knows he’d been about to finish that with “Kenji”.

“Why aren’t you strong enough to tell me the goddamn _truth_? Don’t you owe me that much?” Futakuchi demands, near a growl, and his hands tighten in the crisp, white sheets surrounding him. “You say you— _care_ for me, but you won’t tell me the truth? Isn’t that dangerous? I’ve nearly died _three fucking times_ now!”

“This one, I got an answer for. If you actually _knew_ about me, then you’d be at more risk, because you’re a goddamned idiot when ya wanna be.” Kamasaki stands, chair screeching back, and gives Futakuchi an inappropriately cold look considering he feels _he’s_ the wounded party here. “I’ve told you, Futakuchi. I’ve told you so many fucking times I have it all rehearsed. And you don’t fucking believe me. And when you do, you _hate me_ , and I’m not strong enough to do that again this last time.”

With that, he begins walking away. Futakuchi wishes he could get out of bed without falling on his face, but words have always come more naturally to him than action.

“Maybe I wouldn’t hate you if you’d stop fucking walking _out_ on me!” he shouts after him.

Kamasaki’s shoulders go rigid around his ears. Futakuchi knows, viciously pleased, that he’s finally gotten a clean hit on him.

But he does not turn around to argue more. He does not yell back. He doesn’t even raise his voice, doesn’t even _turn around_ , when he replies, “You left first, Futakuchi.”

“Fuck you!” Futakuchi shouts as the door slams shut behind him.

He screams into his pillow, alone in the stupid hospital room, and hates himself and Kamasaki. Shadows swarm the bed, too small to climb up, biding their time.

 

—

 

“How is he?” Iwaizumi asks as soon as Oikawa ducks out from their bedroom.

“Finally asleep. Talked himself out,” Oikawa whispers.

“And… how _is_ he?”

“Iwa-chan, we need to do something.” With a heavy, tired sigh, Oikawa flops down onto the couch. Iwaizumi raises his arm so Oikawa can duck under it and lay against him. “He won’t admit it, but he went after my shadow. If Terushima-kun hadn’t been there…”

“How’s Bokuto doing, have we heard from him?”

“Kuro-chan is being annoying with how much he’s asking about. He thinks Bocchan is having hallucinations, but if he’s heard about magic, it’s only a matter of time before he starts seeing things. Especially if Bocchan is collecting as many as Kou-chan.”

“Matsukawa says he got cornered by Kuroo yesterday, demanding answers. Someone’s gonna have to talk to him,” Iwaizumi mumbles, tired himself. He’s not even certain he’s processed the grief yet. It doesn’t feel real; surely this is all just a nightmare he’ll wake up from soon.

Two people _dead_.

None of it has gotten through his thick skull that Oikawa always accuses him of. Iwaizumi just feels _tired_. He’s careful to try to stay sensible enough to not add to any of their problems, and he’s used to being the pillar upon which Oikawa supports himself. He can handle doing that for Sugawara, too, if he needs it.

“What about Futakuchi? Have we heard from him recently?”

Oikawa makes a negative sound.

“So not since your tantrum on the roof?”

Oikawa makes another, guiltier, negative sound.

“So… Kamasaki’s solo now, and then there’s you, and there’s Matsukawa, and now there’s Terushima. And Akaashi’s ring.” One ring is slightly less of a worry than two rings, but Iwaizumi doesn’t want any more surprises. He can’t _handle_ any more surprises. “And your shadow is wandering around…”

“Kou-chan won’t go after it again,” Oikawa mumbles, defensive.

Iwaizumi knows it had really shaken Oikawa up, to hear that his friend had tried to end things via a monster wearing his face. Iwaizumi desperately hopes that it had been a matter of convenience for Sugawara, not anything darker, but he doubts Sugawara will ever tell either of them. He hopes Bokuto doesn’t try the same thing.

“Iwa-chan, we have to figure out the way to stop them,” Oikawa tells him. “We need to figure out the way to kill them. It’s _possible_ , we know that now, but…”

“Sawamura died,” Iwaizumi reminds him without judgment.

“But we never thought we _could_ kill them before, and he proved we _can_. There has to be a way to do it. They can kill us, and take our magic, and _they_ survive!”

“These things are _dangerous_! There’s a reason no one’s been able to kill one before Sawamura—you know what his magic was! He had to roast that thing, roast the entire area probably, to get it to stop. We don’t have that kind of firepower anymore. Terushima… is still new to this.”

“What if it was the magic,” Oikawa says in a low voice.

Iwaizumi quiets. He thinks.

“They want our magic. What if it was killing them _with_ the magic that caused him to die?” he continues.

“You have a theory, don’t you?” Iwaizumi asks, then reiterates, “You want to _test_ this theory.”

“We have to end this, Iwa-chan.”

 

—

 

“What happened?” Ennoshita asks like a disappointed parent.

Terushima leans back far enough to look up at him, upside-down. He kicks his feet out into open air, arms still looped around the railing in front of him. The gym is empty, of course. Practice has been put on hold due to a sudden loss. It sounds impersonal, like that.

“What do you mean?” Terushima asks, as carefully as he can. There’s no way Ennoshita knows. This shit is all supposed to be _secret_.

“Futakuchi is getting discharged today, and Nametsu tells me you haven’t been to visit him _once_. What’s going on between you two?” Ennoshita sits down next to him, making it clear that he’s not leaving. “Some sort of fight, or…?”

“Some sort of fight,” Terushima sullenly agrees.

“He’s fine, you know. It was just exhaustion and some malnutrition. We all yelled at him to take better care of himself, and I think he’s still shaken by the fact that Nametsu admitted she cried over him, but you know him.”

Terushima hunches into himself again. The guilt is a lead weight in his stomach—but what was he _supposed_ to think? The truth had been too horrible to accept, and he’d lashed out because of it. He knows exactly what he did. He knows what he did to _Futakuchi_ , and in his mind, he alternates between replaying their argument and replaying the last time he’d spoken with Sawamura. Sugawara had been there.

Somehow, it’s easy not to think about the look on Sugawara’s face when he’d made the fire.

Small miracles, he supposes. Another small miracle: Ennoshita doesn’t press him, nor judge him, and just sits next to him in reassuring silence.

It takes Terushima some time to uncurl, to relax, to try to draw his thoughts out of the dark hole they keep slipping into. He notices the little monsters, now. He can see how they swirl around the feet of people who look like they’re having a bad day. He had seen how many Sugawara had been trailing, and seen the way the monsters struggle to chase after people, seeking out their life and warmth.

Ennoshita only has one on his shoulder because he’s near Terushima.

Terushima ignores it. Iwaizumi had told him that the little ones were only dangerous in large amounts. He doesn’t _want_ to acknowledge its presence, because acknowledging that the little shits are real means that everything _else_ that has gone wrong is real, too, and despite his rewinding thoughts, he can’t bear to accept it just yet.

“Has Shirabu said anything to you?” Terushima finally asks. He doesn’t know how much time has passed. Bless Ennoshita’s natural-born patience.

“Shirabu and I really only talk when others are involved,” Ennoshita replies, tone dry. “He still hasn’t accepted that I, a perfectly sane human being, can stand to be friends with Yahaba.”

Despite himself, Terushima laughs weakly. He’s always liked Ennoshita’s gentle, wry humor.

“Why do you ask? Is he supposed to be gossiping more than usual?”

“Futakuchi… told him some things. I know he was worried. Just wonderin’ if he was more worried, now,” Terushima hedges.

“No one’s picking sides,” Ennoshita says. “This isn’t going to turn into some friend divorce bullshit, and you and Futakuchi aren’t breaking up or whatever you think is going on.”

This time, his laugh feels more like a sob.

Ennoshita doesn’t judge him for that, either, just becomes a shoulder to cry on.

“Do you ever—d’you ever just _fuck up_? Like, you don’t even _know_ how much until it hits you all at once?” Terushima asks, voice choked with tears and his own misery. He catches Ennoshita nod out of the corner of his eye, before he tries to wipe the tears away with his sleeve.

“Accidents happen. No one knows everything all the time—it can be easy to be insensitive without context,” Ennoshita tells him. Terushima wonders how much he knows, how much he’s guessed. Obviously, not the full truth, but he’s clearly working with more than nothing. “Not to play therapist like certain annoying psych majors, but you know you can talk to me, right? I’m not picking sides.”

“I told Futakuchi he was lying. I told him—I was such a _bastard_ to him, and he was right. And now I feel like even _more_ of a jackass, and then there’s Sugawara-san, and—”

Terushima remembers, too late, that Ennoshita certainly has thoughts on his old upperclassman. “Why is Suga involved?” Ennoshita asks, more quietly and gently than ever, but something about his voice sounds dangerous. _Protective_. Terushima can tell he’s choosing his next words carefully, and he braces himself accordingly. “…Does your fight with Futakuchi have anything to do with what happened to Daichi?”

Terushima freezes like a deer in the headlights. He knows it’s the guiltiest thing he could have done.

Ennoshita continues, still so calm and collected, “I know you had feelings for Daichi, and I don’t want to—I’m not faulting you for that sort of thing. But why was Suga involved?”

There’s an unspoken threat, hanging beneath those serene words.

Terushima swallows. He feels sicker than before.

He buries his face in his arms and refuses to answer. He doesn’t know why the stupid ring chose him, because he’s a _coward_.

 

—

 

“Yassun,” Futakuchi coos, cutesy and coy and everything Kamasaki hates, “why don’t you pay attention to _me_ , Yassuuuuuun?”

“Would ya _stop_ calling me that? You’re gonna sound like Oikawa soon,” Kamasaki gripes. He shrugs his shoulders, trying to shrug Futakuchi off, but it’s halfhearted at best. Futakuchi knows Kamasaki likes it when he drapes himself all over him, shameless and sprawling and _wanton_. Some sort of power trip, or something.

Futakuchi has no issue playing into it when it suits him.

“That was Sasaya’s fault, and you know it,” Futakuchi happily replies. He rubs his cheek against Kamasaki’s hair, a few times, just to mess it up. “Maybe I _have_ been spending too much time with Oikawa-san, though. Maybe I ought to take a break.”

Kamasaki stills, and turns far enough to try to catch Futakuchi’s eye.

“Yassun, let’s _go_ somewhere for Golden Week. Just the two of us,” Futakuchi says in his most annoying voice.

“Don’t ask for shit I want when you’re acting like such a brat!” Kamasaki snaps. In some impossible feat _surely_ involving magic Futakuchi doesn’t yet understand, he manages to haul Futakuchi over the back of the couch and onto his lap with only a mild amount of elbowing and kicking.

Futakuchi ends up lengthwise on the couch, his shoulders and back rather than his head resting on Kamasaki’s lap. It’s not very comfortable.

“Ask me like a normal goddamn person,” Kamasaki says, though his cheeks are furiously red, so Futakuchi knows he’s won this round. Kamasaki _wants_ to have a vacation with him.

Futakuchi’s glad he gets this, again, this time.

“Do you want to go to Kyoto for Golden Week? We can play tourist and ignore all of our responsibilities,” Futakuchi asks, not exactly serious, but at least with a genuine sort of grin.

Kamasaki, too, eases into a sincere smile. “Sure. I’d love it.”

Futakuchi pokes his nose, not cute, not joking. He uses the finger with the ring on it. “Great. But keep in mind, Yasushi, that I’m _not_ a normal goddamn person you’re going on vacation with, mmkay?”

Kamasaki grabs his finger with a rough hand, but he’s gentle when he kisses the ring. “I’ll keep that in mind, _Kenji-kun_ , if you tell me how many times you’ve already asked me this.”

 

—

 

Futakuchi wakes and the dream is still so vivid he can _taste_ it, heavy and sweet on his tongue.

He rolls out of bed and hardly makes it to the bathroom before dry heaving.

He doesn’t vomit, and his stomach itself doesn’t protest, unlike other strange nightmares he’s had. This—his _mind_ wants to reject it so badly that his body struggles to compensate. Already, the dream tatters and fades at the edges, leaving just glimpses of smiles so soft and grips so strong they feel like tangible memories.

But that’s not true.

Kamasaki hates him.

Futakuchi stomps out a shadow and glares at his face in the bathroom mirror.

_Kamasaki doesn’t hate me_ , he tells himself, the truth sour even in private. _Kamasaki loves me._

Futakuchi doesn’t actually feel better, admitting it to himself in the dark hours of the morning, but it stops the little black monsters from swarming his bed.

 

—

 

“I think we should at least try,” Matsukawa says, reasonably, despite the tightness in his frame and the way his arms are crossed.

“I hate you,” Iwaizumi says on reflex.

“What if it _is_ the magic, hm? We know Sawamura would have relied on it. We know it’s what they’re after. So what if the trick is to kill them is to keep that away from them as we do so? If we could figure out how to kill them, then this entire shitty situation can get turned on its head,” Matsukawa points out.

Iwaizumi pinches the furrow in his brow. He already has a headache, and he dreads it worsening. “And if you’re wrong, you _die_. Yeah, those are odds I want you two to play.”

“There’s another thing,” Oikawa says in a light, airy voice, counterpoint to whatever weight Iwaizumi knows he’s about to drop. It shows how serious he is that he doesn’t even pause for the drama of it. “What if it was because he killed his _own_ shadow? According to Jung, shadows are a part of your psyche.”

“So you want to swap,” Matsukawa says. His face is unreadable. “You want Iwaizumi and I, a healer and a normal person, to fight against your shadow without magic.”

“It’s just another theory,” Oikawa huffs.

They both know that’s what he meant, but he would _never_ admit to wanting to risk his friends. Neither will push him on it, Iwaizumi also knows.

“It’ll put the odds a bit more in our favor,” he continues, “and even if we don’t figure out _which_ it is, I don’t particularly care. So long as it works, right?”

“Right,” Matsukawa agrees, still impassive.

“This is still dangerous. Even _fighting_ those things is a risk, remember?” Iwaizumi says.

“Yes, but if it gets to be dangerous, we’ll do what we’ll always do. Oikawa-san will swoop in to save the day!” Oikawa declares. After a beat, in which neither of them even complain about him, he relents, and says, “We know how to get away from them, and that isn’t an issue. We can control the situation. This won’t be some fistfight to the death in a back alley, Iwa-chan. Mattsun doesn’t have offensive magic, and if things go south, we will pull back. I can intervene and we’ll try again later, or not, if we figure something else out.”

“Oh, no,” Matsukawa says, surprising them both. “No, if you say no magic, then we’re trying _no magic_. No magic weapons, no fancy clothes, no healing unless it’s after the fact. Iwaizumi and I will beat this thing with baseball bats, sure, but we’re not going to bend the rules when it comes to something this serious.”

“If you’re in the middle of a fight, and either of you get hurt—”

“Then _you_ do your swooping routine and I’ll heal us _out_ of danger.”

“It’s going to be a _fight_ ,” Oikawa hisses, and Iwaizumi can see that this is going to build between them.

But Matsukawa unfolds his arms and stands to his full height. Oikawa is forced to glare, however slightly, up at him. “Tooru, I have four centimeters and six kilos on you. I can and will beat your ass without magic, and we both know that Iwaizumi can take either of us in a fight. If you want to try this, if you want to risk _your_ life, you have to let us risk ours and do this _right_.”

“He’s right,” Iwaizumi agrees, before Oikawa can turn this into an actual argument just for the sake of his pride. “He’s _right_ , and don’t argue, dumbass. This is something we’re all doing together, so that means you’re not the one calling all the shots.”

Oikawa huffs, but relents.

Matsukawa deflates, too, air leaving him in a relieved sigh. Iwaizumi knows he doesn’t actually like arguing. Even banter with them wears him out these days, but they’ve never had the same sort of relationship with him.

“Now, before we go discussing things like time and place, I want to tackle the elephant in the room,” Matsukawa announces with something resembling his usual indifference.

“What elephant?” Oikawa suspiciously demands.

Iwaizumi sighs and waits for something _else_ horrible to be dropped onto his lap.

“We’re still missing a ring, and Iwaizumi is about to head into a situation where your life is going to be in danger. Hell, mine too,” Matsukawa points out.

Iwaizumi’s face feels hot, but he also feels terribly, terribly cold. He hadn’t actually thought of that.

Judging by the tightness of Oikawa’s jaw, Oikawa had at least some half-thought about this prospect.

“Are we going to try to force it? Set it up so we can try to turn Iwaizumi?” Matsukawa bluntly asks.

“I thought we wanted to _avoid_ magic,” Iwaizumi starts, but he’s already stumbling over his words and reasoning, caught off guard as he is. Himself, a knight? It sits sour on his tongue.

Oikawa won’t look at him.

They know the rules of ring inheritance—the weapon and outfit may change, but the core magical power stays the same. Akaashi had been able to negate magic, so that could be an incredibly useful skill. But it has no offensive capabilities, and Iwaizumi doesn’t know how it would interact with Oikawa’s theory. Does negating magic _count_ as magic? Would him becoming a knight completely ruin any chances they had at testing this without sending Matsukawa in alone, or finding Matsukawa’s shadow?

Or _Iwaizumi’s_?

“We don’t really know how Akaashi’s negation worked. Kamasaki might know more, or he might not. But this is a really, _really_ simple set-up, and I think it could happen. We need to figure out if we want it to or not,” Matsukawa tells them.

On one hand, Iwaizumi becoming a knight would bolster their forces, officially. They’re the only remaining team now. Iwaizumi wouldn’t worry them, if he were to fight alongside them, and they wouldn’t have to worry about any other surprises like Terushima popping up.

It would also be a hell of a backup plan in case someone’s ring _were_ to get stolen.

But it could ruin their chance at figuring out how to actually kill these things. They would have to go back to dodging, and running, and hiding. They might have to rely on someone else, like Futakuchi, or Sugawara, and just the thought of that sits like a stone in Iwaizumi’s belly.

He would be sidelined for Oikawa’s plan.

“Let’s not force it,” he finds himself saying. “I’ll… keep aware of myself. Matsukawa and I can try this out, _try_ it, and we’ll see how it goes. This can remain an option for later.”

Matsukawa eyes him, unreadable once again, but all of the tension in Oikawa’s face and frame were as obvious as if he had neon signs pointing to it.

Iwaizumi knows that Oikawa doesn’t want him to become a knight.

Iwaizumi _thinks_ he knows that Oikawa hadn’t wanted to become a knight himself. Not like he did. Not with the ring of someone they knew.

 

—

 

Kuroo thinks he’s going insane.

Bokuto had spouted a lot of shit— _a lot_ of it—in all of his grief and rage and sorrow about Akaashi’s passing. Most of it hadn’t made sense at the time, but the longer Kuroo stayed with him, the more certain things kept getting repeated.

Bokuto blames himself.

Bokuto blames Akaashi.

Bokuto blames _monsters_.

And damn him, now Kuroo’s getting jumpy about half-seen movement out of the corner of his eye. It’s like a bad horror movie.

He’s on edge, slow at processing his own grief, pushing it to the side in order to try to support Bokuto. It’s funny, how they have the same problem, the same loss, but Kuroo can manage to ignore his in order to help with the same exact thing.

He knows it’s not a healthy way of dealing with this shit.

He hasn’t slept properly in over a week, and Bokuto is now sleeping at his place full time. He’d originally crashed at Bokuto’s, but there were too many reminders of Akaashi. Even Kuroo was sick at the sight of them, and he didn’t have time for his own tears when Bokuto needed his help.

But shit, _monsters_?

Kuroo’s definitely losing it. Probably sleep deprivation. He knows how that shit can make you, he’s read that Russian sleep experiment shit. Minor hallucinations are probably the least of his worries, but at least they’re easy to deal with, even if he’s jumping at every other shadow. Shadows that shouldn’t be _moving_.

At least Bokuto is fine going to most of his classes now; they both agreed that he needs the distraction, and he can’t fall behind or else he’ll lose his scholarship. The funeral had been rough, and Sawamura’s disappearance had resulted in a meltdown that Kuroo hadn’t expected at all, but there are only so many tears you can cry.

Bokuto won’t be home for another hour, about, and Kuroo is _so_ tired. He doesn’t want to think—he wants to _stop_ thinking, for two goddamn minutes. Stop worrying about Bokuto and stop worrying himself sick thinking such dark thoughts about his best friend.

_Kou wouldn’t do that_ , Kuroo tells himself, as he allows himself to close his eyes for just a few minutes. The couch is comfier than he remembers. Probably also the sleep deprivation.

But Kuroo also vividly remembers how violent Bokuto’s grief had been. There had been threats. Threats that Kuroo believes aren’t threats anymore, but the dark memory lingers, gnawing on the edge of every other thought.

Oh, he needs to pick up more soy sauce—but what if Bokuto jumps off the roof while he’s at the grocery store?

Oh, he needs to study for his o-chem exam—what if he tries to bring Bokuto to a hospital, but he only ends up hating him?

Oh, he misses Akaashi—but why is he so much of a goddamned coward to care about what Bokuto thinks of him when he could be in danger of harming himself?

Oh, he’s beginning to hate himself, too—so what does it matter if Bokuto does?

Kuroo squeezes his eyes shut and prays for his thoughts to quiet for one whole fucking moment. He just wants to _sleep_.

He tries to sleep, but an odd weight on his chest makes him crack open an eye.

No matter how many times he blinks, the odd shadow, cast by nothing, doesn’t disappear from his bleary vision.

 

—

 

It’s _so_ easy to find Oikawa’s shadow.

It’s still so close, just a few blocks from their apartment, and they easily lure it into a park that’s empty this time of night, but still lit by plenty of lamps. They shouldn’t get caught. This won’t be a big, flashy fight, and those things never speak, so it’s not like their victim will be screaming.

It’s a simple plan, Iwaizumi tells himself. Kill the thing wearing Oikawa’s face. Bring a weapon against an exact copy of his best friend. Beat that body until it’s broken and bloody and unmoving.

No big deal.

Oikawa sits on top of a swingset, far enough that Iwaizumi can only see him up there because he’s looking. He’s close enough to be over here in a flash, probably just a single leap for him, and no doubt he can see everything.

Iwaizumi and Matsukawa stand, in a bright pool of harsh, artificial light, in street clothes. They both have baseball bats, and Iwaizumi has borrowed a pair of Matsukawa’s non-prescription glasses, just on the off chance someone sees them.

It’s definitely a dumb disguise.

Somehow, it’s reassuring.

“You ready?” Matsukawa asks, and he takes the first step, swinging the bat up onto his shoulder.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Iwaizumi huffs. “Remember, unless something breaks, _no_ magic.” Oikawa might freak out at the first sight of blood, but Iwaizumi isn’t risking this plan _or_ his life for nothing. He can handle a few bruises or a couple scratches.

Oikawa’s shadow shuffles toward them, but with none of the manic desperation as it does when Oikawa is actually near. If anything, it might be _confused_. Disinterested, for sure. Its black eyes linger on Matsukawa, and it seems to dismiss Iwaizumi entirely, probably because he’s not wearing a ring.

Maybe there is some weight to this magic theory.

Its disregard for Iwaizumi is so high that he nearly gets within arm’s reach before it lunges at him.

He swings with all his might and catches the shadow in the face.

It staggers to the side, off balance, and Matsukawa sends it to the ground with his own swing. He kicks it, and it rolls, perhaps a bit too far for normal standards.

“Hang back,” Iwaizumi tells him. “I’ll be careful, but keep an eye on Oikawa.”

Matsukawa makes an unhappy sound, but he steps back.

The shadow lashes out at Iwaizumi with inhuman speed, and this time, it catches him. Its claws rip through the top of his boots and the denim of his jeans with ease. Iwaizumi nearly stumbles, gritting his teeth against the feeling of hot blood running down his calf, but he can still move on it. He’s _fine_.

He holds up an arm to prevent Matsukawa from coming to him, but Matsukawa hadn’t even moved. They both know that if he shows any concern, there’s no stopping Oikawa, and then the night is shot.

Iwaizumi keeps out of its immediate range, as best he can, and catches it with an upswing again, like he’s playing golf. Covered in blood, it looks a little less like Oikawa. Maybe if he blackens its eyes or knocks a few teeth out, his heart will stop hurting as he progresses.

The shadow lunges at him again, jaws open inhumanly wide, and he jams the end of his bat into its mouth.

It scrabbles at the metal, as if confused, claws leaving growing gouges. Iwaizumi doesn’t wait for it to break it—he shoves all his weight behind the bat and sends it stumbling, then flat onto its back, pinned by the metal in its mouth. He crunches one hand beneath his boot, but it digs its claws into his leg before he can grab the other.

Matsukawa snaps its arm with his own well-timed stomp.

“Thanks,” Iwaizumi pants out. He must keep his weight on his injured leg, to keep it pinned, and he thinks that it’s easy for the moment. It’ll be harder to keep moving on it; they can’t afford to waste this chance now.

It kicks and thrashes, but with some careful maneuvering, Matsukawa manages to step on its stomach, though it still bucks beneath him like a mad bull. “Let’s not draw this out,” he grunts, wobbling but maintaining his balance. “I don’t like this, and I don’t like long, messy cruelty.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be a sadist?” Iwaizumi grumbles.

“Not when this is wearing Oikawa’s face. Same as you,” Matsukawa flatly replies.

Iwaizumi knows he has a point there. They have it pinned, for the moment, but it won’t hold—and they don’t have any easy way of killing it, either. “How’s Oikawa?” he asks, staring down at the shadow, trying to think of the fastest method of violence.

“Hasn’t moved,” Matsukawa answers, after a glance over his shoulder, “but I’d bet a week’s worth of lunch that he’s probably biting his nails bloody. Another reason to be quick.”

“Yeah, and do _you_ have any bright ideas? I’m not really versed in how to _kill people_.”

“Well… Do they breathe?” Matsukawa nods down to its throat, arched and bared thanks to the pressure on its mouth.

Iwaizumi exhales through his gritted teeth. He takes another breath, to steel himself, and carefully places his boot on Oikawa’s shadow’s throat. It gives like how he imagines a human neck would—a bit of softness, of delicate tissue and airways suddenly crushed, then the firmness of muscle and bone beneath.

It still fights. Its claws dig into the asphalt beneath them, and it still tries to buck Matsukawa off without avail.

And it doesn’t slow at all.

Iwaizumi realizes—he probably already _knew_ , but he can call it a realization to reassure himself—that he’s going to have to break this thing’s neck before it would ever suffocate. He doesn’t think they can be knocked unconscious, but maybe they’ll get lucky. For once. He takes another breath, shuddering this time, and puts more of his weight onto its neck.

It moves weight off of his injured leg.

Quick as lightning, its hand flashes up and rakes searing pain down from Iwaizumi’s hip to the top of his boot. He backpedals with a shout, more surprised than pained he tells himself, but it shoves him off and lunges at Matsukawa. Its wrist clearly breaks when Matsukawa surges forward, landing on its hand instead of trying to move backwards, and he swings at its head with all his might.

Its head snaps to the side with an ugly _crack_ , but it doesn’t slow in the least.

Iwaizumi doesn’t know where to put his hands—his leg is bleeding _so much_ now—but he can still stand, and as terrible as it is, adrenaline is keeping the pain away for now. He can still fight. He has to get Matsukawa away from it.

Matsukawa dances away, swinging again with his bat, but he can’t get a full swing in. It comes after him on all fours, broken wrist ignored, now making a wet sort of gurgling sound whenever it opens its mouth. It’s the closest thing to a sound Iwaizumi has ever heard from these things, and it’s hideous.

“Matsukawa!” Iwaizumi shouts, and Matsukawa changes directions, leading it toward Iwaizumi again.

Out of its immediate range, Iwaizumi is no longer on its radar, and its attention is wholly devoted to the ring on Matsukawa’s finger. It’s almost scarier to see a shadow not their own to follow someone with such dogged determination. Despite its injuries and lack of proper color, despite the dead black of its eyes, it looks too much like Oikawa still.

Iwaizumi catches it right in the temple with his bat.

He knows he felt bone crack.

It stumbles, and collapses, just for a moment. When the shadow rises again, blood courses down the side of its face, and its eye is just as bloody, slowly rolling upward in its socket. Iwaizumi feels the bile rise in his throat, and he tries to swallow it down, but when it shakes its head and splatters blood around it, he knows he’s going to be sick, adrenaline be damned.

Iwaizumi stumbles off to the side, bat still clenched tight in one hand, but the other holding his stomach as he retches. He _can’t_ handle seeing Oikawa’s face like that. He knows it’s not Oikawa, he fucking knows that, but every bit of his brain rebels against the image even so. He can’t do it again. He can’t watch someone else die, someone he _cares_ about, not fucking _Oikawa_.

Though the thought makes him sick nearly as much as the visual, he thinks, _Anyone but Oikawa_.

Matsukawa is still staying ahead of it, but close to maintain its attention; he moves with precision and skill, but risk. Not something Iwaizumi wants to see right now, either. He watches Iwaizumi with blatant, but calculated, concern.

Iwaizumi waves him off. He struggles to catch his breath, and his leg is beginning to ache, but he can _still fight_. He will kill this Oikawa so his will be fine. This stupid fucking theory needs to be tested, and damn them all for going along with it, but he won’t be the one to back down. He can’t be the weak one.

Their strategy remains the same: Matsukawa leads it to Iwaizumi, and he manages to get good swings in, thanks to its continued dismissal of his existence. It would be comical in a retelling. _So despite how Shittikawa acts, his shadow ignored my entire existence. Hilarious, right? So that’s how I beat it bloody and killed it._ Definitely hilarious.

When it finally staggers, nose crushed and eye pulped entirely, Iwaizumi realizes his vision is swimming with tears. His throat burns with more bile, but he refuses to back down now.

The shadow clutches at its face, at the bits of broken bone and ruined flesh, on its knees before them. It turns its face up, blood bubbling at its lips, and Matsukawa sends it to the ground one final time with a solid _thunk_. He kicks it for good measure, and when he steps away, Iwaizumi catches him shoving his glasses up to wipe at his eyes.

“I’ll finish this,” Iwaizumi mutters, and Matsukawa nods. Maybe he really is a sadist. “Go make sure Oikawa’s alright. Shout if I need to stop.”

He limps towards the shadow’s prone form. They’ve never seemed to register pain before, and it isn’t acting human by any stretch of the imagination, but the way it clutches at its broken face gnaws on some part of his hindbrain.

Not enough to stop him, however.

He puts his boot on its throat again, weight on his good leg, and brings his bat down like it’s a sword. Again and again, he pummels its face, breaking its nose and smashing in its other eye socket and making it drool out its own bloody teeth. It claws, weakly, at his pant leg, but it’s losing strength rapidly.

It’s _dying_.

Iwaizumi takes a moment to catch his breath and wipe his own eyes. Not that he wants to see this mess clearly, but he can’t afford any more weakness.

The shadow jerks a few times beneath him. Its hand falls away from his leg, and its gurgling becomes erratic.

“Holy shit,” he breathes, and steps off of it. They fucking did it. It’s not dead _yet_ , but it’s not moving anymore, and its face doesn’t resemble a human so much as ground beef. Disgusting, and Iwaizumi thinks he may vomit again, but for the moment, a sort of peace at being _done_ has overtaken everything else.

He turns, automatically seeking out Oikawa. Looking to see if he’s just killed his best friend.

Oikawa is still seated on the top of the swingset, a dim silhouette in the dark night, and Matsukawa leans against the metal leg, bat resting against his boots. Iwaizumi can’t see their expressions, but they’re both there, far away. No magic was involved in this vile mess. Oikawa didn’t kill his own shadow.

The shadow falls limp at his feet, and something cold and hard lodges itself in Iwaizumi’s chest.

It happens so quickly that he doesn’t even question it; he only knows that he’s _already_ running when Oikawa’s figure pitches backward off the swingset.

“ _No_! Oikawa!” It might be thirty meters, hardly any distance at all, but it takes _forever_. He sees Oikawa fall as if in slow motion. Iwaizumi moves through molasses, too far away to help, blood still slick on his hands and he _can’t accept it_. He didn’t just do this to him. He couldn’t have—he can’t lose another friend like this. He can’t lose _Oikawa_ like this.

With a flash of light, he finds himself suddenly across that distance, standing in front of Oikawa’s crumpled form.

His cape flutters around his shoulders as he stops.

Matsukawa stumbles away from him, hand clapped over his mouth, unable to take this sight again. Iwaizumi doesn’t blame him; Iwaizumi hardly _registers_ him as he falls to his knees.

His new gloves are red, exactly like the blood on his hands.

 

—

 

_You who are worthy, with the will to protect and the courage to act, are granted the ring, the strength, and the duty of the knight._

 

—

 

Kamasaki slams him against the wall. Futakuchi’s head bounces against it, but he doesn’t register the pain so much as the pain in Kamasaki’s eyes. “You’re a fucking _what_?!”

“I’m not wearing the outfit for shits and giggles, Yassun,” Futakuchi drawls.

“Don’t fucking—” Kamasaki seizes him by the collar of his uniform. Futakuchi knows the nickname had been a low blow, but truth be told, he’s _terrified_. What sane person _doesn’t_ lash out when cornered? Futakuchi thinks himself _very_ sane, against all odds. Kamasaki glares at him through snake-slit eyes. “Drop the bullshit. How long have you been magicky or whatever?”

“Last year,” Futakuchi replies with a grin he certainly doesn’t feel. “I’ve been doing this since last year, and I’m still fine. I just thought, with things as they are between us, that you ought to know. I didn’t plan on you finding out like _this_ , though.”

Kamasaki glares down at the criss-crossing straps of Futakuchi’s magical garb. When Futakuchi had originally envisioned this, he’d thought there would be more jeering, some leering, maybe even advantageous use of the ribbon around his waist. He had expected disbelief and laughter. He hadn’t thought it would include a near-death experience and— _this_.

_This_ Kamasaki, he does not know how to handle. This Kamasaki, who is _so_ worried about something Futakuchi has been doing on his own for far longer than a year.

He’s lost track of how long he’s been doing this.

“I didn’t want you to find out like this,” Futakuchi adds, honestly, because Kamasaki’s fists are still by his neck, clenched so tight they’re shaking.

“You’ve been out there, riskin’ your goddamned _life_ , and I’m just now findin’ out about this?” Kamasaki asks in a low voice. His gaze is still downcast, tracing the edge of Futakuchi’s top. After a deep breath, which fans back out across Futakuchi’s throat, he loosens his grip. By gradual degrees.

“How was I supposed to tell you? Oh yeah, I’m magic? Oh yeah, I fight monsters? Oh yeah, I’m sorry I keep brushing off our dates because I have to go kick ass or save innocents or nurse my wounds?”

Kamasaki’s eyes snap back up to his and Futakuchi wishes he could cut out his own tongue. “That’s why you keep endin’ up with bruises?”

“The bruises _you_ don’t give me,” Futakuchi snaps back, weakly. He suddenly feels like crying. He hates the honest hurt in Kamasaki’s eyes, but worse, he hates the _concern_ there. Pure, unconditional concern, and something terrifyingly like love. Worst still is the prickling in his own eyes.

Futakuchi doesn’t deserve this, not when he’s lied to him about all this, not when he’s still thirty seconds from undoing all of this because he’s a goddamned _coward_.

Futakuchi doesn’t realize he’s actually crying until Kamasaki’s thumb brushes away his tears. Then, he bursts into terrible, ugly sobbing, and despite the fact that Kamasaki has him pinned against the wall with his hands still twisted into his shirtfront, he wraps his arms around him and buries his face in Kamasaki’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry, I’m _sorry_ , I never wanted you to—I didn’t want this!” Futakuchi isn’t sure he’s understandable, much less making any sense, but each word lifts more and more of this awful burden off of his shoulders.

He never wanted this.

He never asked for this ring, this _duty_ , this terrible curse. He doesn’t deserve to champion justice or whatever they’re supposed to be doing. He doesn’t get along with the others, he keeps fucking it up, and he’s scared of the cost of his own magic. He’s not good enough to handle _any_ of this.

Kamasaki shouldn’t find it out like this—he probably shouldn’t find out at _all_.

This is why their relationship has been going to hell, if it can even be _called_ a relationship anymore when he’s gone more than he is home and when he does come back, he limps back like an abused dog and refuses to answer questions. It’s not for Kamasaki’s own safety; it’s for his. Futakuchi loves him, but he’s terrified of him. He’s terrified of losing him. He’s lost everyone else, so many times, but he knows just _once_ , and he couldn’t do it anymore.

Kamasaki growls something into Futakuchi’s hair. Futakuchi’s crying softens into stuttering little hiccups, and Kamasaki either continues or repeats himself, “God fucking _damn_ it.”

Futakuchi freezes.

He reaches for his magic.

“How long have you been keepin’ this pent up, huh? The entire time? A _year_?” Kamasaki pries him off, and cups his face so Futakuchi is forced to look at him. His movements aren’t exactly gentle, but they’re not his usual roughness, either. “What kinda shitty boyfriend am I if you couldn’t have shared this with me?” Kamasaki mutters.

Futakuchi sniffs, still blinking at him, and his magic hovers in his hand, unspent.

“Would you have believed me if I had suddenly started spouting shit about magic?” Futakuchi asks.

“No, but if you would’ve lifted a car like Oikawa, I sure as shit would’ve believed you.”

“Sorry, that’s not my kind of magic, I’m not that glamorous. I just get the cute bow, pretty gold, and responsibility complex.”

Futakuchi waits, magic tingling in his fingers, for Kamasaki to ask him what kind of magic he does have. Futakuchi waits to show him.

Instead, Kamasaki leans forward, kisses his forehead, and murmurs, “I’m sorry for letting you down.”

“How did you let me down?” Futakuchi asks. He sounds like he’s about to cry again, but at least now it’s the embarrassing way, not so much like he wants to crawl out of his own skin and let the shadows eat him way. “You’ve never… You couldn’t. You were the normal thing here. _My_ normal thing.”

“There’s always been signs you’ve been weird. You ain’t that slick, Kenji. I should’ve paid more attention, and should’ve given ya a shoulder to cry on _way_ before you needed it this badly.”

Futakuchi averts his eyes. His magic dwindles, then fades to nothing but pins and needles in his fingertips when Kamasaki kisses him again, this time on the lips. It’s softer, more gentle, than anything they’ve ever shared before. Futakuchi hates softness. He hates the vulnerability that comes with softness.

He doesn’t hate this.

“I could’ve lost you, you brat,” Kamasaki murmurs against his mouth, before kissing him again.

Futakuchi can’t apologize again; Kamasaki keeps kissing his words away. He hopes it’s not a tactic he tries again in the future, when Futakuchi isn’t scrubbed raw and weak and still half-scared out of his damn mind. He’s _still_ waiting for the softness to give way to the sharp pain of rejection.

He realizes he doesn’t remember _when_ he decided that Kamasaki would hate him for his double life.

He doesn’t remember a lot of _whens_ anymore, but Kamasaki has always been the one thing he’s taken pains to keep normal. The chance of maintaining compartmentalization slips further and further from his hands the deeper they kiss—and Futakuchi _cares_ less and less.

Kamasaki releases his death grip on Futakuchi’s collar, and Futakuchi sucks in a breath as if he’d been choking. He pulls back, head hitting the wall again, and Kamasaki gently cups the back of his head to prevent a third time. Their foreheads rest against each other; Kamasaki has gone from anger and hurt and now remains firmly rooted in something tender.

“How many more stages of grief do you have to work through?” Futakuchi murmurs against his lips. “I can’t deal with denial right now. I’ll run away.”

“Denial was last month,” Kamasaki replies, and pecks his mouth, “when ya came back with a broken arm and tried to tell me ya fell down the stairs.”

“I _did_. Three flights when I blew through the—”

“Can you stop talking for two seconds?” Kamasaki interrupts, firmly, but not unkindly. The hand he clamps over Futakuchi’s mouth is a little less loving, though. “I feel like I’m gonna puke up my heart if I gotta actually _think_ about the kinda danger you’ve been dealin’ with. I just want you—to be _okay_.”

Kamasaki wraps both arms around him, unyielding and strong and solid as he’s ever been, and lifts Futakuchi easily. It’s not romantic, but at least it’s not a fight anymore. Futakuchi allows himself to hope as he’s carried to the bedroom.

They fall into each other with none of the anger their usual desperation possesses; they fall into each other with all of the devotion they have both feared showing. It’s frantic, and messy, and rushed, and Futakuchi _loves_ this man so much his chest aches with it. He doesn’t care what kind of outfit he strips off Futakuchi. Futakuchi doesn’t care that too much magic still aches in his limbs. Kamasaki preps him with patience and the sort of determination Futakuchi used to admire in him on the court. He adores that kind of focus on himself.

Kamasaki’s fingers entwine with his when he first pushes into him. Futakuchi is still adjusting to the feeling when Kamasaki catches sight of the ring still glowing faintly on his middle finger.

Futakuchi reopens bleary eyes when Kamasaki pulls his ring off.

It feels like he’s been shocked, or maybe had half an orgasm, or maybe died a little. Futakuchi groans and goes limp beneath him, and Kamasaki blinks down at him in surprise.

Futakuchi struggles to catch his breath before speaking. His limbs feel leaden—one leg has slipped off Kamasaki’s hip entirely—and he struggles a few times before he can clumsily cup Kamasaki’s cheek. “Warn a guy,” he pants.

Kamasaki kisses his forehead in apology. Futakuchi blames the magic for the way his chest squeezes.

“Didn’t mean to short ya out or something,” he whispers, and slides the ring back onto Futakuchi’s finger.

With great strength, Futakuchi flops his head to the side, looking at the silver band now on his ring finger.

“No more secrets,” Kamasaki adds and kisses him again, before he starts moving.

Futakuchi stares at the ring until he’s overcome with the feeling of Kamasaki within him. Neither of them last, pent-up and emotional wrecks that they are, but Futakuchi spills first. He tilts his head back, exposes his throat, and moans openly as Kamasaki finishes inside him.

They collapse, sweaty and exhausted in more ways than one.

It takes several minutes before Futakuchi musters the courage to break the silence weighing them down. His heart rate is back to normal, and Kamasaki remains at companionable arm’s length from him. He stares up at the ceiling when he flatly says, “No more secrets. This isn’t the first time I’ve told you.”

“What does _that_ mean?”

“It means I’m a coward.” Futakuchi rolls onto his side, and reaches for Kamasaki with the hand with the ring on it. “We have a lot to talk about, Yasushi. Make me promise you it’ll be the last time we do.”

Kamasaki does not balk, even from the crypticness of the statement. “I promise, Kenji.”

 

—

 

Futakuchi wakes, covered in sweat, boxers tight and bile burning his throat.

He stares down at his hands—no rings, of course. Why would he have a ring? He isn’t sure, and the dream slips from him, replaced by further nausea and confusion. He staggers to the bathroom and falls to his knees before the toilet, but does not puke. He feels pathetic, still, for a multitude of reasons. He halfheartedly crushes a few smaller shadows beneath the heel of his palm.

The dream fades, as they usually do, but a single detail lingers bright and sharp in his mind.

_Why did that take place in my bedroom?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: In the face of further grief and mounting horror, the truth comes out at last.


End file.
